AAS Mid-Career Award for Esra Bulbul
Dr. Esra Bulbul, lead scientist for the eROSITA cluster science and cosmology working group at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE), has been awarded the prestigious Mid-Career Award by the High Energy Astrophysics Division (HEAD) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). This recognition highlights her pioneering contributions to astrophysics and cosmology research.
Under Dr. Bulbul’s leadership, the eROSITA cluster and cosmology team has delivered transformative insights into cosmology. In 2020, Dr. Bulbul was awarded a €2M ERC Consolidator Grant for her project, “DarkQuest: Shedding Light on the Nature of Dark Matter and Dark Energy with Multi-Wavelength All-Sky Surveys." The ERC Consolidator Grants recognize exceptional researchers with a strong scientific track record and great potential, based in EU Member States or associated countries.
A few years later, in February 2024, her team published a groundbreaking analysis of galaxy cluster evolution. This work provided precise measurements of the total matter content in the Universe and its degree of clumpiness, resolving discrepancies in previous studies. The results, which also offered new insights into the elusive neutrino mass and the pressure exerted by dark energy, underscore eROSITA’s revolutionary capabilities in cosmic discovery. Central to this achievement was one of the largest X-ray catalogues of galaxy clusters ever compiled, with the majority of these clusters being newly identified, further highlighting eROSITA’s unparalleled contribution to modern astrophysics and cosmology.
With the award, the AAS honours her “singular role in the success of the eROSITA Cluster and Cosmology Team results, developing the largest galaxy cluster catalog to date, and obtaining the most precise constraints on the matter distribution in our universe via the cluster mass function”.
“I am deeply honored and grateful to receive this recognition. I extend my heartfelt thanks to my research group, colleagues, and mentors for their unwavering support throughout this remarkable journey and to the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society for cultivating such a dynamic and inspiring scientific community”, says Dr. Bulbul. “This award reflects years of dedication and collaboration with outstanding scientists across multiple continents. I remain fully committed to advancing cosmology research during this golden era of multiwavelength surveys, including SRG/eROSITA, Euclid, Rubin, and Roman, while inspiring and mentoring the next generation of scientists”, she adds.
Before joining MPE in 2019, Dr. Bulbul worked as a staff scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. She has held postdoctoral fellowships at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. She received her Ph.D. in Physics from the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in December 2010.
About the HEAD Mid-Career Award
The HEAD Mid-Career Prize is awarded approximately every 18 months for a significant advance or accomplishment (observational or theoretical) in High Energy Astrophysics by an individual astrophysicist within fifteen years of receiving their PhD. The prize consists of $1500 in prize money and an invitation to present a plenary talk at the AAS-HEAD Divisional Meeting in the award year.
