Johan Samsing awarded 2025 MERAC Prize for "Best Early Career Researcher"

The 2025 MERAC Prize for "Best Early Career Researcher" in Theoretical Astrophysics is awarded to CoG Assistant Professor, Johan Samsing, for his seminal contributions to the understanding of how black holes merge in the Universe. The MERAC prize is awarded by the European Astronomical Society (EAS).

CoG groupleader, Assist. Prof. Johan Samsing receives the prize for his pioneering work on ways to probe the origin of binary black hole mergers in the new era of observational gravitational wave astrophysics. In particular, he was the first to derive how binary black hole mergers with observable eccentricity naturally form in dense stellar systems, which is now one of the most reliable ways of probing the formation site and environment of black holes in our universe. J. Samsing currently leads the effort to explore how different astrophysical environments create unique gravitational wave modulations, which especially can be used to probe the origin of individual black hole mergers in the coming years. J. Samsing is supported by a Villum Young Investigator Grant and the ERC starting Grant.

April 12, 2025, 6:09 p.m.