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Katie Bouman

2007

As a high school student, Bouman conducted imaging research at Purdue University. She graduated from West Lafayette Junior-Senior High School in 2007.

2011

Bouman studied electrical engineering at the University of Michigan and graduated summa cum laude in 2011. She earned her master's degree in 2013 and obtained a doctoral degree in electrical engineering and computer science in 2017 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

2013

Bouman joined Event Horizon Telescope project in 2013. She led the development of an algorithm for imaging black holes, known as Continuous High-resolution Image Reconstruction using Patch priors (CHIRP). CHIRP inspired image validation procedures used in acquiring the first image of a black hole in April 2019, and Bouman played a significant role in the project by verifying images, selecting parameters for filtering images taken by the Event Horizon Telescope, and participating in the development of a robust imaging framework that compared the results of different image reconstruction techniques. Her group is analyzing the Event Horizon Telescope's images to learn more about general relativity in a strong gravitational field.

June 2019

Bouman joined the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) as an assistant professor in June 2019, where she works on new systems for computational imaging using computer vision and machine learning. She is now an associate professor of computing and mathematical sciences, electrical engineering and astronomy as well as a Rosenberg Scholar. Bouman received a named professorship at Caltech in 2020. In 2021, Bouman was awarded the Royal Photographic Society Progress Medal and Honorary Fellowship.

June 2019

The California Institute of Technology, which hired Bouman as an assistant professor in June 2019, awarded her a named professorship in 2020. In 2021, asteroid 291387 Katiebouman was named after her. In 2024, she became an associate professor.

2024

She was recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2019. In 2024, Bouman was awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship.