Michael S. Turner | |
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Born | |
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | Stanford University |
Known for | coining the term dark energy |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Physical cosmology |
Institutions | University of Chicago |
Doctoral students | Marc Kamionkowski Arthur Kosowsky |
External videos | |
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Michael S. Turner (born July 29, 1949) [1] is an American theoretical cosmologist who coined the term dark energy in 1998. [2] He is the Rauner Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Chicago, [3] having previously served as the Bruce V. & Diana M. Rauner Distinguished Service Professor, [4] and as the assistant director for Mathematical and Physical Sciences for the US National Science Foundation. [1]
Turner's book The Early Universe, co-written with fellow Chicago cosmologist Edward Kolb, is a standard text on the subject. [5] [6] [7] The 2003 National Academy study, Connecting quarks with the cosmos: eleven science questions for the new century, which Turner chaired, identified opportunities at the intersection of astronomy and physics and has helped shape science investment in the US in this area. [8] In 2022, Turner was appointed as a co-leader, with Maria Spiropulu, of a National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine study, leading a committee of 17 physicists world-wide to consider the strategic vision of research in elementary particle physics. [3]
Turner received a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1971, and earned a PhD in physics from Stanford University in 1978. [9]
Turner became an instructor in physics at Stanford University in 1978, and was a fellow at the Enrico Fermi Institute from 1978 to 1980. He was a visiting professor at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara from 1981 to 1982, and became a scientist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill, in 1983. [1]
Turner joined the faculty of the University of Chicago as an assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics in 1980, rising to associate professor and then full professor as of 1985. He served as chair of the department from 1997 to 2003, and was named the Bruce V. and Diana M. Rauner Distinguished Service Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics in 1998. [1] He held a joint appointment as one of the founding members of the NASA/Fermilab Theoretical Astrophysics Group at the NASA Fermilab Astrophysics Center (NFAC). [10] [11]
In addition, Turner served as the president of the Aspen Center for Physics from 1989 to 1993, and the assistant director of the National Science Foundation for Mathematical and Physical Sciences from 2003 to 2006. [1] He has served on committees for the Department of Energy, NASA, NSF, the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences. [9] Turner was president of the American Physical Society in 2013. [1]
From 2010 to 2019, Turner served as director of the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago. He was succeeded as director by Edward Kolb. [12] By 2020 Turner was the Rauner Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Physics at UChicago. [13]
With Edward Kolb, Turner helped establish the interdisciplinary field of particle astrophysics, combining cosmology and elementary particle physics to understand the origin and evolution of the Universe. [10] His research focuses on the earliest moments of creation, and he has made contributions to inflationary cosmology, particle dark matter and structure formation, the theory of big bang nucleosynthesis, and the nature of dark energy. [4] His work in precision cosmology combines theoretical work with measurement to better understand and test theories and models using cosmological data. [14] [11]
David Norman Schramm was an American astrophysicist and educator, and one of the world's foremost experts on the Big Bang theory. Schramm was a pioneer in establishing particle astrophysics as a vibrant research field. He was particularly well known for the study of Big Bang nucleosynthesis and its use as a probe of dark matter and of neutrinos. He also made important contributions to the study of cosmic rays, supernova explosions, heavy-element nucleosynthesis, and nuclear astrophysics generally.
Edward W. Kolb, known as Rocky Kolb, is a cosmologist and a professor at the University of Chicago as well as the dean of Physical Sciences. He has worked on many aspects of the Big Bang cosmology, including baryogenesis, nucleosynthesis and dark matter. He is author, with Michael Turner, of the popular textbook The Early Universe. Additionally, alongside his co-author Michael Turner, Kolb was awarded the 2010 Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics.
Marcela Silvia Carena Lopez is an Argentine theoretical physicist, and since November 2024 the Executive Director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, ON, Canada. Prior to taking this position she was a Distinguished Scientist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, where she was Director of the lab's Theory Division. She is also a professor at the University of Chicago, where she is a member of the Enrico Fermi Institute and the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics.
Roger David Blandford, FRS, FRAS is a British theoretical astrophysicist, best known for his work on black holes.
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Wendy Laurel Freedman is a Canadian-American astronomer, best known for her measurement of the Hubble constant, and as director of the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California, and Las Campanas, Chile. She is now the John & Marion Sullivan University Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. Her principal research interests are in observational cosmology, focusing on measuring both the current and past expansion rates of the universe, and on understanding if there is missing physics in the standard cosmological model.
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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".
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Burçin Mutlu-Pakdil is a Turkish-American astrophysicist, and Assistant Professor at Dartmouth College. She formerly served as a National Science Foundation (NSF) and Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics (KICP) Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago. Her research led to a discovery of an extremely rare galaxy with a unique double-ringed elliptical structure, which is now commonly referred to as Burcin's Galaxy. She was also a 2018 TED Fellow, and a 2020 TED Senior Fellow.
Angela Villela Olinto is an American astroparticle physicist who is the provost of Columbia University. Previously, she served as the Albert A. Michelson Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago as well as the dean of the Physical Sciences Division. Her current work is focused on understanding the origin of high-energy cosmic rays, gamma rays, and neutrinos.
Gary Steigman was an American astrophysicist and astronomer, known for his research on primordial nucleosynthesis, particle physics in the first few minutes of the Big Bang, and relic particle abundance.
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.
Joshua A. Frieman is a theoretical astrophysicist who lives and works in the United States. He is a senior scientist at Fermilab and a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago. Frieman is known for his work studying dark energy and cosmology, and he co-founded the Dark Energy Survey experiment. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2022.
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