Allison Kirkpatrick is a nationally recognized expert on the detection and growth of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies. She is currently a professor at the University of Kansas, where she runs a large research group that peers back in time to understand how our own Milky Way came to be. She was a key member of the CEERS (the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey) collaboration, which received some of the first data from JWST in summer 2022. She leads her own survey, MEGA (MIRI EGS Galaxy and AGN Survey), on JWST with over 100 hours of dedicated observing time. She is also deeply committed to making the field more inclusive and equitable for future generations of students.