Congratulations to Fahan School Alumna, Sophie Young, Class of 2019 on this prestigious national award for her exceptional black hole research.

Sophie's work is truly out of this world. It explores the distant Universe, supermassive black hole jets and light bursts that are a million times brighter than the sun. While she had always been fascinated by space and astronomy, Sophie had never really considered studying it further until a project introduced her to the basics of supercomputer simulations.

Sophie's recognition highlights her exceptional research and reflects the strength and impact of the University of Tasmania’s astrophysics program.

“Being awarded the Bok Prize is an incredible honour and it still feels quite surreal to be recognised on a national scale,” Sophie said.

“I have always been fascinated by space and astronomy, but I’d never really considered studying it further until I had the opportunity to do a summer research project through UTAS that involved learning the basics of supercomputer simulations.

“This opened my eyes to a completely new area of astrophysics which I barely even knew existed.”