 | |
| Established | 2006 |
|---|---|
| Director | Anthony Challinor |
| Faculty | School of Physical Sciences, University of Cambridge |
| Staff | 48 [1] |
| Address | Madingley Road |
| Location | |
| Website | www.kicc.cam.ac.uk |
The Kavli Institute for Cosmology, Cambridge (KICC) is a research establishment set up through collaboration of the University of Cambridge and the Kavli Foundation. It is operated by two of the University's astronomy groups: the Institute of Astronomy (IoA) and the Cavendish Astrophysics Group.
In August 2006, an agreement was reached between the University of Cambridge and the Kavli Foundation for the establishment of an Institute for cosmology. [2] The Kavli Foundation will support several 5-year senior research fellowships in perpetuity, and the University committed to provide a building to house the Institute. Operation began in October 2008 with the appointment of the first Kavli Institute Fellows. The building was completed in July 2009, and was officially opened 18 November 2009 by Prince Philip as Chancellor of the University in a ceremony with Fred Kavli.
The current director of the Institute is Anthony Challinor, and the deputy director is Debora Sijacki. The first director was George Efstathiou of the IoA, succeeded by Roberto Maiolino.
KICC researchers are involved in the following projects:
The Kavli Building is located adjacent to the Hoyle Building, the main building of the IoA. The two are connected by a raised walkway. The building was designed to encourage the occupants to interact with one another as well as with the occupants of the Hoyle building. It is intended to be similar in architectural style to the Hoyle Building, but to be sufficiently distinctive so as to retain an independent identity. [3] The architects were Annand and Mustoe. The design includes use of ground source heat pumps and a heat exchanger serving under-floor heating to meet City Council requirements that at least 10% of the building's energy is generated on-site.
The Kavli Institute offers every year a number of prestigious Kavli Fellowships intended for outstanding young scientists early in their careers. Most of the previous Kavli Fellows are now research leaders around the world. [4]
Sir Fred Hoyle (24 June 1915 – 20 August 2001) was an English astronomer who formulated the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis and was one of the authors of the influential B2FH paper. He also held controversial stances on other scientific matters—in particular his rejection of the "Big Bang" theory (a term coined by him on BBC Radio) in favor of the "steady-state model", and his promotion of panspermia as the origin of life on Earth. He spent most of his working life at St John's College, Cambridge and served as the founding director of the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy at Cambridge.
Sir Martin Ryle was an English radio astronomer who developed revolutionary radio telescope systems and used them for accurate location and imaging of weak radio sources. In 1946 Ryle and Derek Vonberg were the first people to publish interferometric astronomical measurements at radio wavelengths. With improved equipment, Ryle observed the most distant known galaxies in the universe at that time. He was the first Professor of Radio Astronomy in the University of Cambridge and founding director of the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory. He was the twelfth Astronomer Royal from 1972 to 1982. Ryle and Antony Hewish shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1974, the first Nobel prize awarded in recognition of astronomical research. In the 1970s, Ryle turned the greater part of his attention from astronomy to social and political issues which he considered to be more urgent.
Michael S. Turner is an American theoretical cosmologist who coined the term dark energy in 1998. He is the Rauner Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Chicago, having previously served as the Bruce V. & Diana M. Rauner Distinguished Service Professor, and as the assistant director for Mathematical and Physical Sciences for the US National Science Foundation.
The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA), previously known as the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, is an astrophysics research institute jointly operated by the Harvard College Observatory and Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Founded in 1973 and headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, the CfA leads a broad program of research in astronomy, astrophysics, Earth and space sciences, as well as science education. The CfA either leads or participates in the development and operations of more than fifteen ground- and space-based astronomical research observatories across the electromagnetic spectrum, including the forthcoming Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, one of NASA's Great Observatories.
The University of Cambridge has three large astronomy departments as follows:
The Institute of Astronomy (IoA) is the largest of the three astronomy departments in the University of Cambridge, and one of the largest astronomy sites in the United Kingdom. Around 180 academics, postdocs, visitors and assistant staff work at the department.
Malcolm Sim Longair is a British physicist. From 1991 to 2008 he was the Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. Since 2016 he has been Editor-in-Chief of the Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society.
William Nielsen Brandt is the Verne M. Willaman Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics and a professor of physics at the Pennsylvania State University. He is best known for his work on active galaxies, cosmological X-ray surveys, starburst galaxies, normal galaxies, and X-ray binaries.
The Kavli Foundation, based in Los Angeles, California, is a foundation that supports the advancement of science and the increase of public understanding and support for scientists and their work.
George Petros Efstathiou is a British astrophysicist who is Professor of Astrophysics (1909) at the University of Cambridge and was the first director of the Kavli Institute for Cosmology at the University of Cambridge from 2008 to 2016. He was previously Savilian Professor of Astronomy at the University of Oxford.
Roger Llewelyn Davies is a British astronomer and cosmologist, one of the so-called Seven Samurai collaboration who discovered an apparent concentration of mass in the Universe called the Great Attractor. He is the Philip Wetton Professor of Astrophysics at Oxford University. His research interests centre on cosmology and how galaxies form and evolve. He has a longstanding interest in astronomical instruments and telescopes and developed the scientific case for the UK's involvement in the 8m Gemini telescopes project. He has pioneered the use of a new class of astronomical spectrograph to measure the masses and ages of galaxies, as well as search for black holes in their nuclei. He is the founding Director of the Oxford Centre for Astrophysical Surveys which is funded by the Hintze Family Charitable Foundation.
The Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics is an affiliated research institute of Academia Sinica in Taipei.
Warrick John Couch is an Australian professional astronomer. He is currently a professor at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. He was previously the Director of Australia's largest optical observatory, the Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO). He was also the president of the Australian Institute of Physics (2015–2017), and a non-executive director on the Board of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization. He was a founding non-executive director of Astronomy Australia Limited.
Risa H. Wechsler is an American cosmological physicist, Professor of Physics at Stanford University, and Professor of Particle Physics and Astrophysics at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. She is the director of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology.
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".
The Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics is a research and teaching institute dedicated to astronomy, astrophysics and solar physics located at Blindern in Oslo, Norway. It is a department of The Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Oslo. It was founded in its current form by Svein Rosseland with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1934, and was the first of its kind in the world when it opened. Prior to that, it existed as the University Observatory which was created in 1833. It thus is one of the university's oldest institutions. As of 2019, it houses research groups in cosmology, extragalactic astronomy, and The Rosseland Centre for Solar Physics, a Norwegian Centre of Excellence.
Jamie S. Farnes is a British cosmologist, astrophysicist, and radio astronomer based at the University of Oxford. He studies dark energy, dark matter, cosmic magnetic fields, and the large-scale structure of the universe. In 2018, it was announced by Oxford that Farnes may have simultaneously solved both the dark energy and dark matter problems, using a new negative mass dark fluid toy model that "brings balance to the universe".
Abigail Goodhue Vieregg is a professor of physics at the Enrico Fermi Institute and Kavli Institute of Cosmology, University of Chicago, specializing in neutrino astrophysics and cosmology. Her work focuses on cosmic high-energy neutrinos and mapping the cosmic microwave background.
Debora Šijački is a computational cosmologist whose research involves computational methods for simulating the formation and development of the structures in the universe including galaxies, galaxy clusters, and dark matter, including collaborations in the Illustris project. Originally from Serbia, she was educated in Italy and Germany, and works in the UK as a professor at the University of Cambridge and deputy director of the Kavli Institute for Cosmology.
Erminia Calabrese, FLSW, is a Professor of Astronomy and the Director of Research at Cardiff University School of Physics and Astronomy. She works in observational cosmology using the cosmic microwave background radiation to understand the origins and evolution of the universe. In 2024 she became a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, and in 2022 she was awarded the Institute of Physics Fred Hoyle medal and the Learned Society of Wales Dillwyn medal.
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