--- description: Find out why Priyamvada Natarajan is one of the 100 most influential people of 2024. title: Priyamvada Natarajan: The 100 Most Influential People of 2024 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1936914f88f91567/698a558e9d83e87d7bb99f59/time-100-2024-Priyamvada-Natarajan.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Apr 17, 2024 # Priyamvada Natarajan by Shep Doeleman  Mandatory Credit: Photo by Marta Perez/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock (10342848b) Indian Priyamvada Natarajan, Astronomy and Physics professor at Yale University, poses for the media during an interview with Spanish News Agency EFE held in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, 21 July 2019\. Priyamvada Natarajan interview in Barcelona, Spain - 21 Jul 2019 Mandatory Credit: Photo by Marta Perez/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock (10342848b) Indian Priyamvada Natarajan, Astronomy and Physics professor at Yale University, poses for the media during an interview with Spanish News Agency EFE held in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, 21 July 2019\. Priyamvada Natarajan interview in Barcelona, Spain - 21 Jul 2019Marta Perez—EPA-EFE/Shutterstock For astronomers, seeing evidence in the sky of something predicted from pure theory brings with it a special joy. A burst of excitement as a puzzle piece falls into place. In November, a novel approach developed years ago by Priyamvada Natarajan brought us closer to under­standing a basic mystery in astron­omy: How do the supermassive black holes that lurk at the centers of most galaxies form? [She had speculated](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/24/science/space/astronomy-black-holes.html "undefined") that they might have gotten a jump start in the very early universe if clouds of gas collapsed to form massive black-hole “seeds” that then grew within their host galaxies over billions of years. It took the piercing gaze of the James Webb Space Telescope to finally observe a galaxy so far back in cosmic time, and with a central black hole so massive, that what scientists saw could be explained naturally by Priya’s theory. Priya has a knack for pursuing the most creative research, and as a fellow astronomer, I am always inspired by her work. Her latest result takes us one step closer to understanding our cosmic beginnings. _Doeleman is an astrophysicist and the founding director of the Event Horizon Telescope_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2024/6964966/priyamvada-natarajan/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2024/6964966/priyamvada-natarajan/"},"headline":"Priyamvada Natarajan","datePublished":"2024-04-17T10:55:36.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T00:28:50.045Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2024/6964966/priyamvada-natarajan/","keywords":["TIME100","franchise","Magazine","Special Project","sponsorshipblock","Accolades","2024TIME100","T100Pioneers2024"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1936914f88f91567/698a558e9d83e87d7bb99f59/time-100-2024-Priyamvada-Natarajan.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1936914f88f91567/698a558e9d83e87d7bb99f59/time-100-2024-Priyamvada-Natarajan.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2024/6964966/priyamvada-natarajan/","name":"Priyamvada Natarajan"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"See Everyone on the TIME100 2024 list","description":"","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/73p9kgIN/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2024-04-17T11:00:00.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/73p9kgIN.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2024/6964966/priyamvada-natarajan/","duration":"PT1M59S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2024/6964966/priyamvada-natarajan/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```