K. E. Saavik Ford

K. E. Saavik Ford (she/her) earned her PhD in Physics & Astronomy from The Johns Hopkins University in 2003, followed by a postdoctoral Carnegie Fellowship at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. She worked briefly as Curator of Science at the Ingram Planetarium, before being hired as a faculty member by CUNY Borough of Manhattan Community College in 2006. She also joined the American Museum of Natural History as a Research Associate in the Department of Astrophysics, and was appointed to the CUNY Graduate Center as a member of the Doctoral Faculty in Physics. More recently, she has been a visiting scientist at the Center for Computational Astrophysics at the Flatiron Institute.

Prof. Ford is the co-originator of the AGN channel for producing merging stellar mass binary black holes (as detected by LIGO), and continues to work on the theoretical underpinnings of the channel, attempting to use a combination of GW and EM (electromagnetic) observations to better understand AGN disks. She is broadly interested in the consequences of having 'things' in AGN disks, including stellar mass black holes, neutron stars, white dwarfs, and main sequence stars. Much of the physics for these scenarios is similar to the problems encountered by proto-planetary disk modelers, with whom she often works. She is also a member of the LISA Consortium and works on various problems related to lower frequency GW, especially EMRIs and IMRIs (extreme- and intermediate-mass ratio inspirals, respectively). Time domain astrophysics, including the ZTF & LSST/Rubin observatory projects offer a complementary approach to understanding AGN disks, and she works often with collaborators in those areas. Finally, she is involved with direct observations of some nearby galaxies with JWST & HST, with a goal of revealing the structures and evolutionary histories of their nuclei (and the impact of those nuclei on the wider galaxy).

Prof. Ford is also a co-founder of AstroCom NYC, a program to improve recruitment & retention of underrepresented minorities in astronomy & astrophysics, through a partnership between minority serving institutions (multiple CUNY campuses) and major research institutions (AMNH & CCA). In her roles for AstroCom NYC, she oversees all program mentor-mentee relationships, provides mentor training and she co-teaches and co-developed the innovative, inquiry-based and student-centered course 'Science Thought & Practices', in addition to serving directly as a mentor for many of the students, and for many mentors. The program is now in its 10th year and has supported many CUNY students through their undergraduate years and into graduate studies, and has become a national model. Prof. Ford has also developed multiple training workshops for educators wishing to expand their teaching and/or mentoring skills (in particular for those wishing to teach a course similar to Science Thought & Practices).

Prof. Ford is dedicated to continuously improving the environment in the profession of astronomy, to support the excellence of the whole persons who choose to become astronomers, and to encourage other astronomers to do the same.