Probing the Large-Scale Universe

Contemporary Science Issues and Innovations
January 19, 2016 Belmont Media Center, Belmont MA

Licia Verde, Ph.D., ICREA Professor of Physics, Instituto de Ciencias del Cosmos (ICC), Universidad de Barcelona (Spain); Edward, Frances, and Shirley B. Daniels Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University (2015-2016); Adjunct Professor, Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo (Norway)

The expansion of the universe is speeding up and astrophysicists are trying to figure out why. International teams of scientists are investigating through deep-sky surveys. Possible sources of the acceleration include dark energy, dark matter, or gravitational differences on those scales. Dr. Verde explains what astronomers are searching for and how they conduct and analyze these investigations.
Dr. Verde's research focus is the large-scale structure of the universe. Her work is at the interface of theory and observation. She is involved in studies of the cosmic microwave background, galaxy clustering, statistical applications and data analysis. Today, these projects are international, and Dr.Verde is part of several major surveys: the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III, the EUCLID, the(COrE) and DESI.
Dr. Verde is editor of the journal Physics of the Dark Universe. Licia Verde and WMAP team colleagues received the 2012 Gruber Cosmology Prize for Pinning Down the Universe Dr. Verde's video (in Spanish) Observando los temblores del Big Bang