29-Year-Old Katie Bouman Responsible for First Black Hole Image Bouman, a computer scientist, led the br development of the algorithm that captured br the first-ever image of a black hole. She began working on the br algorithm three years ago as br a graduate student at MIT. The photo, depicting the object from br 500 million trillion km away, was br released on Wednesday. "Watching in disbelief as the first image I ever made of a black hole was in the process of being reconstructed." Katie Bouman, to br 'BBC Radio 5 live' Bouman insists that she doesn't deserve br all of the credit, as a team of more than br 200 scientists assisted with the project.