October 9, 2025 3:40 a.m.   

Kareem El-Badry, a scientist from Roseburg has received a 2025 MacArthur Fellowship – an unrestricted $800,000 grant from the foundation recognizing extraordinary creativity and impact.

A foundation release said El-Badry is an astrophysicist improving people’s understanding of the stellar population of the Milky Way Galaxy, particularly the formation and evolution of binary star systems. By using large survey data, targeted observations, and theoretical modeling, his work aims to understand how binaries form, evolve, and interact, with a focus on binaries that include black holes. With more large astronomical datasets becoming available in the near future, El-Badry’s research is poised for even more discoveries about binary stars, the Milky Way Galaxy, and other wonders of the universe.

El-Badry received his BS in 2016 from Yale University and a PhD in 2021 from University of California, Berkley. Prior to joining the California Institute of Technology as an assistant professor of astronomy in 2023, El-Badry was a junior fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows and held postdoctoral fellowships at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Max Planck Institute of Astronomy. He has published articles in a number of leading scientific journals.

El-Badry is 31 years-old and currently lives in Pasadena, California. He is a 2012 graduate of Roseburg High School.

22 people have been named 2025 MacArthur Fellows. Since 1981 the MacArthur Foundation has celebrated and inspired the creative potential of individuals through no-strings-attached fellowships.

Kareem El-Badry will talk about his work and the grant, on Inside Douglas County Thursday at 12:30 p.m. on News Radio 93-9 FM and 1240 KQEN.