Abstract:
    Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the hearts of galaxies play a crucial role in galaxy evolution, as implied by the tight correlations between the SMBH mass and the properties of the galaxy. However, direct measurements of SMBH masses are thus far limited to the local universe and subject to systematic inaccuracies. I will present accurate SMBH mass measurements in two local galaxies, NGC 383 and NGC 1574, using ultra-high-resolution ALMA observations of the molecular gas kinematics, which revealed central warps in the kinematic position angle that biased previous measurements using lower-resolution data. I will also present an ongoing effort to dynamically measure the mass of a SMBH for the first time beyond z > 2 using strong gravitational lensing and a novel dynamical forward modelling pipeline.