Michela Mapelli, STRUCTURES professor of Computational Physics, receives an ERC Advanced Grant
The European Research Council (ERC) awarded Michela Mapelli, Professor of Computational Physics at the Centre for Astronomy of Heidelberg University (ZAH), an ERC Advanced Grant of €2.5 million for her project "IMBLACK: Intermediate-Mass Black Holes in the Era of Gravitational-Wave Astronomy". IMBLACK aims to study the formation of intermediate-mass black holes with a mass ranging from 100 to 10.000 times the mass of our Sun.
"Black holes in this mass range are the most enigmatic," says Michela Mapelli. Such black holes are need to explain the formation of supermassive black holes lying at the center of most galaxies, but their observational evidence is still scant, and their origin is puzzling. "Gravitational-wave and electromagnetic measurements are starting to probe this mass regime, and the next-generation gravitational-wave detectors (Einstein Telescope, Cosmic Explorer, and LISA) will capture their mergers across almost the entire Universe. But even if we had such data tomorrow, we would not be able to interpret them, because theoretical models are still too uncertain," Prof. Mapelli further explains.
Michela Mapelli studied Physics at the University of Milano-Bicocca and received her PhD in Astrophysics in 2006 from the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste. After two postdoctoral fellowships in Zurich and Milan, she became permanent research staff at the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) in 2011. She was then a fixed-term full professor at the University of Innsbruck (2017-2018), and an associate professor at the University of Padova (2018-2023). In 2023, Michela Mapelli became STRUCTURES Professor of Computational Physics and joined the Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (ITA) at the Center for Astronomy of Heidelberg University (ZAH) as well as the Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing (IWR). She has received several recognitions for her research on massive stars and black holes, including the MERAC Prize for the Best Early Career Researcher in Theoretical Astrophysics (2015) and an ERC Consolidator grant (2017).
To gain insight into the formation of enigmatic supermassive black holes, IMBLACK will generate an ambitious set of models of the evolution of very massive stars, runaway stellar collisions, and hierarchical mergers of binary black holes in dense star clusters across cosmic time. The new models will be compared against the gravitational-wave data from LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA and electromagnetic candidates, including the one recently discovered by Heidelberg researchers in the Galactic globular cluster Omega Centauri.
Exploring the enigmatic formation of binary black holes
Michela Mapelli and her group, which is located at ZAH's Institute for Theoretical Physics (ITA) aim to shed light on the formation channels of binary black holes by means of innovative numerical models via two scenarios: the formation of binary black holes from the evolution of massive binary stars and the dynamical pairing of black holes in dense star clusters. Her new ERC Advanced Grand will further boost her research on the formation of these enigmatic objects.
About the 2025 ERC Advanced Grants
The European Research Council (ERC) is the premier European funding organization for excellent frontier research. Every year, it selects and funds the very best, most creative researchers of any nationality and age to run projects based in Europe. The ERC offers four core grant schemes, with the ERC Advanced Grant supporting established, leading principal investigators to pursue ground-breaking, high-risk projects.
In 2025, the ERC Advanced Grant scheme attracted 2534 proposals, which were reviewed by panels of renowned researchers from around the world. Only 281 were selected for funding. The new grantees are based in countries across Europe. For the Advanced Grants, the EU provides funding worth a total of €721 million.
FURTHER INFORMATION
ERC 2025 press information for more information
ERC press information by Heidelberg University
Homepage of Prof. Dr. Michela Mapelli
SCIENTIFIC CONTACT
Prof. Dr. Michela Mapelli
Centre for Astronomy of Heidelberg University (ZAH)
Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (ITA)
mapelli@uni-heidelberg.de
CONTACT FOR THE MEDIA
Dr. Guido Thimm
Centre for Astronomy of Heidelberg University (ZAH)
thimm@uni-heidelberg.de
