Kelly Holley-Bockelmann

Kelly Holley-Bockelmann serves as the Stevenson Professor of Physics and Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy within the Space Science faculty at Vanderbilt University, where she joined in 2007 as the institution's first gravitational-wave theorist. Her academic background includes a B.S. in Physics from Montana State University in 1993 and a Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Michigan in 1999, with a doctoral thesis titled "Galactic mergers and the persistence of the core Fundamental Plane." Following her doctorate, she held postdoctoral fellowships at Case Western Reserve University, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the Center for Gravitational Wave Physics at Pennsylvania State University. At Vanderbilt, she directs the Fisk-Vanderbilt Master's-to-Ph.D. Bridge Program, which supports underrepresented students in pursuing doctoral degrees in physics, astronomy, and related fields, and founded the Establishing Multimessenger Astronomy Inclusive Training (EMIT) program, the first U.S. graduate certificate in multimessenger astronomy.

Holley-Bockelmann's research specializations encompass galaxy formation, black hole dynamics—from cosmological scales and galactic centers to merger processes—and gravitational wave astrophysics, particularly sources detectable by the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), such as massive black holes and exoplanets. She utilizes numerical simulations to investigate black hole seeding in early protogalaxies, their growth and evolution, migration to galactic centers, merger timescales, and orbital dynamics. Her contributions appear in key publications, including GWTC-3: Compact binary coalescences observed by LIGO and Virgo (2023), Laser interferometer space antenna (2017), and Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV data releases (2017, 2018), amassing over 17,000 citations on Google Scholar. She received the 2022 Mentor Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science for her leadership in inclusive mentoring. Additional appointments include chair of NASA's LISA Study Team (2017-2024) and chair of NASA's Astrophysics Advisory Committee (since 2022). Under her influence, Vanderbilt has expanded its gravitational-wave research, hiring additional faculty and covering the full spectrum of black hole studies and gravitational waves.