Publications: (* = authors listed alphabetically)

Forthcoming: Skulberg, Emilie and Jamee Elder "What is a ‘direct’ image of a shadow?: A history and epistemology of ‘directness’ in black hole research" Centaurus, special issue: "Shaping a Multi-Messenger Universe: Historical Perspectives on the Changing Skyscape of Astronomical Inquiry"
Forthcoming: Elder, Jamee. "Astronomy, Cosmology, and the Distant Past", in The Bloomsbury Handbook of Deep History, Aviezer Tucker and David Černín (ed.)
2024: *Doboszewski, Juliusz and *Jamee Elder. "Robustness and the Event Horizon Telescope: the case of the first image of M87*", Philosophy of Physics, 2(1), p. 3. Available at: https://doi.org/10.31389/pop.74 (open access)
2024: Elder, Jamee. "Independent Evidence in Multi-messenger Astrophysics", Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 104: 119-129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.02.006 (preprint: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/23082/)
2023: Elder, Jamee. "Theory Testing in Gravitational-wave Astrophysics" in Philosophy of Astrophysics: Stars, Simulations, and the Struggle to Determine What is Out There, Nora Mills Boyd, Siska De Baerdemaeker, Vera Matarese, and Kevin Heng, (ed.), Synthese Library, vol. 472, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26618-8_4 (open access)
2023: Elder, Jamee. "Black Hole Coalescence: Observation and Model Validation" in Working Toward Solutions in Fluid Dynamics and Astrophysics: What the Equations Don't Say. Lydia Patton and Erik Curiel (ed.), Springer Briefs in History of Science and Technology. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25686-8_5  (preprint: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/21987/)
2019: Elder, Jamee. "Defending stance voluntarism". Philosophical Studies 176, no. 11: 3019–3039. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-018-1161-0

ngEHT Publications

2023: Galison, Peter, Juliusz Doboszewski, Jamee Elder [one of four coordinating authors], Niels C. M. Martens, Abhay Ashtekar, Jonas Enander, Marie Gueguen, Elizabeth A. Kessler, Roberto Lalli, Martin Lesourd, Alexandru Marcoci, Sebastián Murgueitio Ramírez, Priyamvada Natarajan, James Nguyen, Luis Reyes-Galindo, Sophie Ritson, Mike D. Schneider, Emilie Skulberg, Helene Sorgner, Matthew Stanley, Ann C. Thresher, Jeroen Van Dongen, James Owen Weatherall, Jingyi Wu, and Adrian Wüthrich. "The Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration: History, Philosophy, and Culture" Galaxies 11, no. 1: 32. https://doi.org/10.3390/galaxies11010032
2023: Johnson, Michael D., Kazunori Akiyama, Lindy Blackburn, Katherine L. Bouman, Avery E. Broderick, Vitor Cardoso, Rob P. Fender, Christian M. Fromm, Peter Galison, José L. Gómez, Daryl Haggard, Matthew L. Lister, Andrei P. Lobanov, Sera Markoff, Ramesh Narayan, Priyamvada Natarajan, Tiffany Nichols, Dominic W. Pesce, Ziri Younsi , Andrew Chael, Koushik Chatterjee, Ryan Chaves, Juliusz Doboszewski, Richard Dodson, Sheperd S. Doeleman, Jamee Elder, Garret Fitzpatrick, Kari Haworth, Janice Houston, Sara Issaoun, Yuri Y. Kovalev, Aviad Levis, Rocco Lico, Alexandru Marcoci, Niels  C. M.  Martens, Neil M. Nagar, Aaron Oppenheimer, Daniel C. M. Palumbo, Angelo Ricarte, María  J. Rioja, Freek Roelofs, Ann C. Thresher, Paul Tiede, Jonathan Weintroub, and Maciek Wielgus . "Key Science Goals for the Next-Generation Event Horizon Telescope" Galaxies 11, no. 3: 61. https://doi.org/10.3390/galaxies11030061

In Preparation or Under Review:

  • "On the `Direct Detection' of Gravitational Waves" (winner of 2021 Du Châtelet Prize in Philosophy of Physics) [Draft] (under review) ​
  • With Juliusz Doboszewski, "How theory-laden are observations of black holes?" (under review)
  • With Juliusz Doboszewski, "Black boxes in black hole astrophysics" (in preparation)
  • A paper on detection of the photon ring with ngEHT+ (in preparation)

Selected Talks (* = invited):

Upcoming:
2024: "Theory-mediated Detection of Novel Phenomena in Astrophysics" PSA 2024 (Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association)
Past:
*2024: "Theory-mediated Detection of Novel Phenomena in Astrophysics" 7th Annual Black Hole Initiative Conference, Harvard University
*2024: "Cosmological Inferences from the Black Hole Fossil Record" Foundational Challenges in Cosmological Studies of Black Holes, University of Bonn
*2024: "Theory-mediated detection of novel phenomena in astrophysics", 1st New England Workshop on the History and Philosophy of Physics, Harvard University
*2023:  "How Theory Laden are Observations of Black Holes?" Cosmology and Quantum Gravity Beyond Spacetime, Western University, Canada
*2023:  "Theory Testing in Gravitational-wave Astrophysics", Philosophy of Experiment Workshop, Stockholm University, Sweden
2023: "Theory Testing in Gravitational-wave Astrophysics", Symposium with Miguel Onesorge, Qiu Lin, and Erik Curiel, "Theory-Testing in Past and Present Gravitational Physics", Foundations 2023, University of Bristol, UK
2023: "How to Detect a Photon Ring: Interpreting Images from an Earth-sized Telescope" at the BSPS 2023 Annual Conference, University of Bristol, UK
*2023: "What is a ‘direct’ image of a shadow?: A history and epistemology of ‘directness’ in black hole imaging" at the History and Philosophy of Physics Research Seminar, University of Bonn, Germany
*2023: "The `Direct Detection' of Gravitational Waves", Seven Pines Symposium, Windows on the Universe: from Galileo to LIGO and beyond, Stillwater MN, USA.
*2023: "Theory-laden Observation in Black Hole Astrophysics" Foundations of Observational, Classical and Semi-Classical Gravitational Physics and The Problem of Agency and Laws of Nature, MCMP, LMU Munich, Germany
*2022: "Large-scale experiments in black hole astrophysics", part of the symposium: "Large-Scale Experiments vs. Large-scale Observations", organized by Florian Boge and Michael Stöltzner, Large-Scale Experiments Reflecting on Theories and Practices, 2nd International Conference of the Research Unit: “The Epistemology of the Large Hadron Collider”, KIT Triangel, Karlsruhe, Germany
2022: with Juliusz Doboszewski, "How Theory-laden are Observations of Black Holes?", PSA 2022 (The 28th Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association), Pittsburgh, US
2022: "Multi-messenger Astronomy: GW170817 as a Case Study in Historical Science" at HPS-CAP ("History, Philosophy & Sociology of Cosmology & Astroparticle Physics") Conference, University of Bonn
*2022: "Theory and Observation: Bridging the Gap" at the ngEHT Meeting "Assembling the ngEHT: Community-Driven Science to a Global Instrument", Granada
(Left: photo credit Anncy Thresher; middle: photo credit ngEHT; right: photo taken by me.)
*2022: "On the `direct detection' of gravitational waves" at the History and Philosophy of Physics Research Seminar, University of Bonn
*2022: "The Direct Detection of Gravitational Waves" Du Châtelet Prize Workshop, Duke University
*2021: "Black Hole Coalescence: Observation and Model Validation" Philosophy of Science Talk Series, Centre for Science and Philosophy, University of Bristol
*2021: "Panel: Epistemology of Very Large Experiments" History and Philosophy of Physics Research Seminar, University of Bonn
*2020: "The Epistemology of Multi-messenger Astrophysics" BHI Conference 2020, Black Hole Initiative, Harvard University
2020: "Sherlock Holmes, Smoking Guns, and Consilience: The Epistemology of Multi-messenger Astrophysics" New Zealand Association of Philosophy Conference, University of Canterbury
*2020: “The Epistemology of the LIGO-Virgo Detections”, Seminar of Philosophy of Science, APC Laboratory, University Paris-Diderot
*2020: "The Epistemology of Gravitational-wave Astrophysics”, BHI Foundations Seminar, Black Hole Initiative, Harvard University
*2020: "Sherlock Holmes, Smoking Guns, and Consilience: The Methodology of Multi-Messenger Astrophysics" HPS Colloquium, University of Notre Dame
*2019: "The Epistemology of LIGO", Philosophy of Physics Seminar, University of Oxford
*2019: "Black Hole Coalescence: Models and Measurement" at the History and Philosophy of Physics Research Seminar, University of Bonn
2019: "Black Hole Coalescence: Models and Measurement" at EPSA 2019, Geneva
2018: "LIGO and Models as Mediators" at Models and Simulations 8 (MS8)
2017: "Modelling Black Hole Coalescence: Numerical Relativity and LIGO" at the "Super-PAC" early career workshop in philosophy of astrophysics and cosmology.
(Photo credit: Melissa Jacquart)
2017: "Drama on the Horizon: Black Holes, Information Loss, and Complementarity" at BSPS 2017, Edinburgh.
(Photo credit: James Nguyen)
2015: (left) "Émilie Du Châtelet on Newtonian Attraction" at EPSA 2015 as part of  a symposium on "Émilie Du Châtelet's Institutions de Physique" featuring (right) fellow Notre Dame graduate students Aaron Wells, Monica Solomon, John Hanson, and Jer Steeger. A full English translation of the Institutions  is available here, through Katherine Brading's website. 
(Photo credit: Monica Solomon)

Dissertation:

My dissertation provides a philosophical study of gravitational-wave astrophysics. This field was launched in 2015 by the first “direct detection” of gravitational waves and the first “direct observation” of a binary black hole merger by the LIGO-Virgo Collaboration. The dissertation includes three main chapters. The first provides an account of the sense in which the LIGO-Virgo detections of gravitational waves are “direct,” and examines the epistemic significance of the direct/indirect distinction thus given. The second concerns the use of gravitational waves to observe binary black hole mergers. I argue that a problematic circularity arises in this context due to the model-dependence of these observations. Finally, the third chapter considers the implications of multi-messenger observations (in this case, observations of the same event with both electromagnetic and gravitational radiation) for overcoming the epistemic challenges of astrophysics. Overall, this dissertation delves into the methodology and epistemology of this emerging field with an aim of understanding both the new resources it offers for learning about the universe and the epistemic challenges (new and old) that confront it in doing so. [Available from Hesburgh Library]