Jo Dunkley | |
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![]() Jo Dunkley delivering a plenary lecture in 2015 | |
Born | Joanna Dunkley 1979or1980(age 44–45) [1] |
Education | North London Collegiate School [1] |
Alma mater | University of Cambridge (MSci) University of Oxford (DPhil) |
Spouse | Faramerz Dabhoiwala [2] |
Children | two [2] |
Awards |
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Scientific career | |
Fields | Cosmology Cosmic microwave background Neutrinos [3] |
Institutions | Princeton University University of Oxford |
Thesis | Modern methods for cosmological parameter estimation : beyond the adiabatic paradigm (2005) |
Doctoral advisor | Pedro G. Ferreira |
Notable students | Renée Hložek |
Website | physics |
Joanna Dunkley OBE FRS is a British astrophysicist and Professor of Physics at Princeton University. She works on the origin of the Universe and the Cosmic microwave background (CMB) [4] using the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, the Simons Observatory and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). [3] [5]
Dunkley was educated at North London Collegiate School [1] and the University of Cambridge where she graduated in 2001 with a Master of Science (MSci) degree in Natural Sciences (Theoretical Physics). She was an undergraduate student of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. [6] She moved to Oxford for postgraduate study where she awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Oxford in 2005 for research supervised by Pedro G. Ferreira where she was a postgraduate student of Magdalen College, Oxford. [7]
Her research is in cosmology, studying the chronology of the universe using the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, the Simons Observatory, and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). [8] [3] [5]
After her DPhil, she joined Princeton University as a postdoctoral research fellow in 2006, working with David Spergel and Lyman Page on NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). [9] [10] In an interview at Princeton in 2017, Spergel said she quickly "made major contributions to the analysis that led to the development of what we now think of as the standard model of cosmology." [9] Soon after she began working with the European Space Agency (ESA) Planck satellite, [11] which produced a higher-resolution view of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) compared to WMAP. [12]
Dunkley moved to Oxford in 2007 and was promoted to Professor of Astrophysics in 2014. [6] Dunkley led analysis for the Atacama Cosmology Telescope in Chile, using gravitational lensing to identify dark matter. [9] At Oxford her work included constraints on the number of possible neutrino species in the world. [13] The images of the CMB, released in 2013, showed the universe at only 400,000 years old. [14] Her research combines theoretical physics with statistical analysis and uses her models to understand the universe from cosmological observations. [15] Alongside estimating how much the universe weighs, Dunkley can identify the proportions of dark energy and dark matter. [16] She used gravitational lensing within the CMB as evidence for dark energy within the universe, selected by Physics Today as a highlight of 2011. [17]
Dunkley rejoined Princeton in 2016. [18] Her new research, using the Simons Observatory, looks for "new physics, complexities and extra particles that could have existed when the universe was very young,". [19] In 2017, she was awarded the Breakthrough Prize for Physics with 22 members of the NASA WMAP Science Team. [20]
Dunkley has given numerous public lectures and seminars. [21] She has made appearances on BBC Stargazing Live and Dara Ó Briain's Science Club. [22] [23] [24] She is mentioned in Pippa Goldschmidt's I Am Because You Are: An anthology of stories celebrating the centenary of the General Theory of Relativity. [25] Her first book, Our Universe: An Astronomer's Guide was published in 2019. [1] [26] [27] She will deliver a series of workshops and talks for students to raise awareness of women's contributions to astronomy as part of a book tour. [19]
Dunkley has won several awards and honours including:
Dunkley has two children with her partner, the historian Faramerz Dabhoiwala. [2] [1]
The cosmic microwave background is microwave radiation that fills all space in the observable universe. It is a remnant that provides an important source of data on the primordial universe. With a standard optical telescope, the background space between stars and galaxies is almost completely dark. However, a sufficiently sensitive radio telescope detects a faint background glow that is almost uniform and is not associated with any star, galaxy, or other object. This glow is strongest in the microwave region of the radio spectrum. The accidental discovery of the CMB in 1965 by American radio astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson was the culmination of work initiated in the 1940s.
The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), originally known as the Microwave Anisotropy Probe, was a NASA spacecraft operating from 2001 to 2010 which measured temperature differences across the sky in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) – the radiant heat remaining from the Big Bang. Headed by Professor Charles L. Bennett of Johns Hopkins University, the mission was developed in a joint partnership between the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Princeton University. The WMAP spacecraft was launched on 30 June 2001 from Florida. The WMAP mission succeeded the COBE space mission and was the second medium-class (MIDEX) spacecraft in the NASA Explorer program. In 2003, MAP was renamed WMAP in honor of cosmologist David Todd Wilkinson (1935–2002), who had been a member of the mission's science team. After nine years of operations, WMAP was switched off in 2010, following the launch of the more advanced Planck spacecraft by European Space Agency (ESA) in 2009.
Observational cosmology is the study of the structure, the evolution and the origin of the universe through observation, using instruments such as telescopes and cosmic ray detectors.
Planck was a space observatory operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) from 2009 to 2013. It was an ambitious project that aimed to map the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at microwave and infrared frequencies, with high sensitivity and angular resolution. The mission was highly successful and substantially improved upon observations made by the NASA Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP).
Cosmology is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe, the cosmos. The term cosmology was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's Glossographia, and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosopher Christian Wolff, in Cosmologia Generalis. Religious or mythological cosmology is a body of beliefs based on mythological, religious, and esoteric literature and traditions of creation myths and eschatology. In the science of astronomy, cosmology is concerned with the study of the chronology of the universe.
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) was a cosmological millimeter-wave telescope located on Cerro Toco in the Atacama Desert in the north of Chile. ACT made high-sensitivity, arcminute resolution, microwave-wavelength surveys of the sky in order to study the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), the relic radiation left by the Big Bang process. Located 40 km from San Pedro de Atacama, at an altitude of 5,190 metres (17,030 ft), it was one of the highest ground-based telescopes in the world.
David Nathaniel Spergel is an American theoretical astrophysicist and the Emeritus Charles A. Young Professor of Astronomy on the Class of 1897 Foundation at Princeton University. Since 2021, he has been the President of the Simons Foundation. He is known for his work on the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) project. In 2022, Spergel accepted the chair of NASA's UAP independent study team.
Charles L. Bennett is an American observational astrophysicist. He is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, the Alumni Centennial Professor of Physics and Astronomy and a Gilman Scholar at Johns Hopkins University. He is the Principal Investigator of NASA's highly successful Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP).
Edward L. (Ned) Wright is an American astrophysicist and cosmologist. He has worked on space missions including the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), and Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) projects.
Lyman Alexander Page, Jr. is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Physics at Princeton University. He is an expert in observational cosmology and one of the original co-investigators for the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) project that made precise observations of the electromagnetic radiation from the Big Bang, known as cosmic microwave background radiation.
Matias Zaldarriaga is a theoretical physicist best known for his work on cosmology. He has made significant contributions toward understanding both astrophysical phenomena and fundamental physics, most notably through his research on modeling the early universe and analyzing statistical properties of cosmic microwave background data. Zaldarriaga grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Buenos Aires in 1994. He received his PhD in 1998 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. Zaldarriaga was a faculty member at New York University and Harvard University, where he received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2006. He is currently a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he has been a faculty member since 2009.
Licia Verde is an Italian cosmologist and theoretical physicist and currently ICREA Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Barcelona. Her research interests include large-scale structure, dark matter, dark energy, inflation and the cosmic microwave background.
Michele Limon is an Italian research scientist at the University of Pennsylvania. Limon studied physics at the Università degli Studi di Milano in Milan, Italy and completed his post-doctoral work at the University of California, Berkeley. He has been conducting research for more than 30 years and has experience in the design of ground, balloon and space-based instrumentation. His academic specialties include Astrophysics, Cosmology, Instrumentation Development, and Cryogenics.
Rachel Bean is a cosmologist and theoretical astrophysicist. She is a professor of astronomy and the interim dean of the Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences.
Hiranya Vajramani Peiris is a British astrophysicist at the University of Cambridge, where she holds the Professorship of Astrophysics (1909). She is best known for her work on the cosmic microwave background radiation, and interdisciplinary links between cosmology and high-energy physics. She was one of 27 scientists who received the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics in 2018 for their "detailed maps of the early universe."
Renée Hložek is a South African cosmologist, Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, and an Azrieli Global Scholar within the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. She studies the cosmic microwave background, Type Ia supernova and baryon acoustic oscillations. She is a Sloan Research Fellow in 2020. Hložek identifies as bisexual.
Christopher Michael Hirata is an American cosmologist and astrophysicist.
Gary F. Hinshaw is a cosmologist and physics professor at the University of British Columbia. Hinshaw worked on the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) whose observations of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) have provided significant insights into cosmology. He holds both US and Canadian citizenship.
Norman C. Jarosik is a US astrophysicist. He has worked on the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) whose observations of Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR) have provided significant insights into cosmology.
Shirley Ho is an American astrophysicist and machine learning expert, currently at the Center for Computational Astrophysics at Flatiron Institute in NYC and at the New York University and the Carnegie Mellon University. Ho also has visiting appointment at Princeton University.
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