Elizabeth Kozlov is a doctoral student in astrophysics at Princeton University, where she studies the geometry of spacetime at its most extreme limits.
Kozlov’s research centers on black holes. Her current work investigates how photon ring observables, the narrow, self-similar features formed by photons that orbit the black hole one or more times before reaching the observer, encode the geometry of their underlying emission surfaces in Kerr spacetime, characterizing the degeneracy structure of these observables under variations in inclination, emission physics, and magnetic field configuration, and identifying observable combinations that permit robust spin inference. She is also beginning work on primordial black holes as relics of the early universe whose abundance is sensitive to inflationary dynamics.
At Princeton, she was awarded the Centennial Fellowship in the Natural Sciences and Engineering and serves on the graduate leadership committee for her department. Her training includes graduate coursework in general relativity, quantum field theory, fluid dynamics, machine learning and particle physics.
Kozlov graduated from Harvard cum laude with high honors in physics, receiving the Carol Davis Prize, the Herchel Smith Fellowship and a Certificate of Distinction in Teaching for her work in quantum mechanics. She has presented her research at an international conference in Tokyo, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and local colloquia. She served as president of the Harvard Society of Physics Students, wrote for the arts board of The Harvard Crimson, and served as a teaching fellow in chemistry, physics, and philosophy.
As an undergraduate, she compared photon ring diagnostics across the Kerr parameter space and developed Fourier-based methods for characterizing interstellar scattering. Earlier work includes precision calibration of superconducting magnets for the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the study of chaotic branched flow and wave-guiding in periodic potentials and the synthesis of metal-organic frameworks for radionuclide capture at the MIT Nuclear Reactor Laboratory.
Originally from Maine, Elizabeth enjoys long walks and hikes, reading and spontaneous trips with friends.
