Misty C. Bentz (born July 4, 1980) is an American astrophysicist and Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Georgia State University.
Bentz is most well known for her work using reverberation mapping to determine the masses of supermassive black holes in the center of active galaxies.
[7] Using these SMBH mass measurements, Bentz has also contributed to calibration of several black hole scaling relationships.
[9][10] The calibration of these relationships allows black hole mass estimates to be compiled for large statistical samples, and they provide observational constraints for large high-resolution hydrodynamical cosmological simulations meant to probe galaxy formation and evolution over cosmic time, e.g. the Illustris[11] and Horizon-AGN simulations.
[12] In 2013, Bentz was selected as one of twenty-two astronomers to chart the road map of NASA astrophysics for the next thirty years.