Jedidah Isler

Isler was raised in Virginia Beach, Virginia[4] and has a sister.[1] When she was 12 years old, she discovered the scientific field of astronomy and began to study for a professional career in science.[5]

Isler's father left the family shortly before she left for college, sparking financial turmoil that threatened to cut her studies short.[1] She graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's of science in physics at Norfolk State University's Dozoretz National Institute for Mathematics and Applied Sciences (DNIMAS), "a program aimed at cultivating minority scientists who want to complete graduate-level work."[4] From there, she became one of the first three student members of the Fisk-Vanderbilt Master's-to-Ph.D. Bridge Program, a program designed to increase the number of women and under-represented minorities with advanced STEM degrees.[6] Under the tutelage of Keivan Stassun, she earned a master's of art degree in physics from Fisk University.

At Yale University, she earned a Master's of Science in physics, and subsequently began her doctoral studies in astrophysics, researching blazars. She became the first African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Yale.[5][7][8] In an NPR interview, she recalled an exchange with one of her classmates during her first year at Yale. "So there are plates everywhere," she recalls. "And all of a sudden, [a white male student] in my class hands me a pile of his dirty plates...and says, 'Here, now go and do what you're really here to do.'"[6] In 2014, Isler published her doctoral dissertation, In Like a Lamb, Out Like a Lion: Probing the Disk-Jet Connection in Fermi Gamma-Ray Bright Blazars,[9] which earned the Roger Doxsey Dissertation Prize from the American Astronomical Society.[10]

Isler is the recipient of numerous prestigious fellowships.

Jedidah Isler at the second White House Astronomy night with Mythbusters hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on Monday, Oct. 19, 2015.

After achieving her PhD, Isler went on to conduct her research through a number of postdoctoral research appointments. From 2013 to 2015, Isler "completed a two-year Chancellor’s Faculty Fellowship at Syracuse University".[4] In 2014, Isler was also awarded the Future Faculty Leaders Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard University's Center for Astrophysics.[11] In 2015, Isler won a National Science Foundation (NSF) Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship, conducting her research[12] in the Physics and Astronomy Department at Vanderbilt University.

In 2015, Isler was awarded a TED Fellowship.[13] She is a 2016 National Geographic Emerging Explorer,[14] and became a TED Senior Fellow in 2017.[15]

In 2018, Isler became an Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Dartmouth College.[3]

Blazar research

Isler's work seeks "... to research blazars and better understand the jets they shoot out nearly at the speed of light".[4] Isler states that her research

focuses on understanding how Nature does particle acceleration. I use blazars –supermassive black holes at the centers of massive galaxies that “spin up” jets of particles moving at nearly the speed of light – as my laboratory. By obtaining observations across the electromagnetic spectrum: from radio, optical and all the way through to gamma-rays, I piece together how and why these black holes are able to create such efficient particle accelerators and, by extension, understand the Universe a tiny bit better. I’m also very interested in and active about creating more equitable STEM spaces for scholars of color broadly, and particularly, for women of color.[3]

External video

"How I fell in love with quasars, blazars and our incredible universe", TED talk, March 2015

STEM advocacy

External video

"The untapped genius that could change science for the better", TED talk, August 2015

In 2015, Isler founded Vanguard: Conversations with Women of Color in STEM (VanguardSTEM),[16] "a live, monthly web-series featuring a rotating panel of women of color in STEM discussing a wide variety of topics including their research interests, wisdom, advice, tips, tricks and commentary on current events". VanguardSTEM is a flagship initiative of Isler's nonprofit organization, The STEM en Route to Change Foundation (The SeRCH Foundation, Inc.), whose mission is "to use science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) as a tool for social justice".[17]

In 2015, Isler delivered a TED Talk on issues of intersectionality, specifically the marginalization of Black women in STEM industries and education, noting that:

According to Dr. Claudia J. Alexander's archive of African-American women in physics, only 18 black women in the United States had ever earned a Ph.D. in a physics-related discipline, and that the first black woman to graduate with a Ph.D. in an astronomy-related field did so just one year before my birth."[18]

Isler wrote a New York Times op-ed on "The ‘Benefits’ of Black Physics Students" in 2015.[19]

• Kavli Fellow Frontiers of Science Symposium, November 2016
• Curator & Host TED Conference, February 2016
• Host TED@IBM, October 2015
• TED Fellow, 2015
• American Astronomical Society Roger Doxsey Dissertation Prize, January 2014
• Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, August 2012
• Edward Bouchet Graduate Honor Society, March 2012
• National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, June 2007
• NASA-Harriett G. Jenkins Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, June 2007

• Official website
• Jedidah Isler at TED
  • "How I fell in love with quasars, blazars and our incredible universe" (TED2015)
  • "The untapped genius that could change science for the better" (TED2015)