How One Astrophysicist Is Charting The Unseen And Rewriting What We Know About Black Holes

2025 MacArthur Fellow Kareem El-Badry is redefining how we understand the cosmos, uncovering black holes, decoding the relationships between binary stars and embracing the unknowns that keep him looking up.

By Jenn Jordan • just now

Expert Hunts For Invisible Black Holes

When Kareem El-Badry picked up an unknown phone call at 7 a.m., he didn’t expect to hear the words that would change his career. “They said, this is so and so from the MacArthur Foundation . And I was like, are they asking for money? I didn’t know very much about it.”

He soon learned it wasn’t a scam. It was the call that would name him one of this year’s MacArthur Fellows , a recognition often referred to as the “g

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