Reva Williams

She is the first person to successfully work out the Penrose process using Einstein's Theory of Relativity to extract energy from black holes.

[7][8] In January 1997, she worked as a visiting assistant professor of physics at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (North Carolina A&T),[8] and in 1998, she became an associate professor of astrophysics and director of the Center for Women and Science at Bennett College, remaining in that position until 2001.

[8] In 2000, Williams received a grant to work with Robert M. Hjellming in Aspen, Colorado and Socorro, New Mexico studying microquasars.

[10] In 2009, she was awarded a National Science Foundation grant to "investigate the jet structure and energy generation of quasars and other active galactic nuclei (AGNs), microquasars, and gamma-ray bursters, all of which are believed to be powered by rotating (Kerr) black holes".

[8] Williams gave a plenary speech at the astrobiology conference, AbSciCon, in the spring of 2022, organized by American Geophysical Union and NASA.

Williams was the first person to successfully work out the Penrose process, which explains how energy can be extracted from a black hole. Above, a spectacular view of black hole outflows from the radio galaxy Centaurus A .