Vera L. Berger

I am a third-year PhD candidate in Physics at MIT, where I study the extremes of black hole accretion through transients such as tidal disruption events and X-ray binary outbursts. I use observations from X-ray to radio wavelengths to characterize black hole variability on millisecond- to year-timescales and map the geometry of the innermost regions of matter closest to a black hole.

Prior to joining MIT, I pursued an MPhil in Scientific Computing at the University of Cambridge, where I developed magnetohydrodynamic simulations of stellar plasmas. I received my undergraduate degree from Pomona College, where I studied supernova host galaxies and the combinatorics of partially ordered sets.