Abstract

This talk is open to all regardless of membership. Register here: https://forms.gle/cL86poryErvsEjtc9

Abstract:

Over the past 20 years, cosmology, which is the study of the original composition and evolution of the Universe, has made the transition to a precision science: the standard cosmological model has been established and its parameters are now measured with unprecedented precision. But how do we know what we know? And where do we go from here? What are the challenges and opportunities? In this talk, I will try to give you a flavour of how cosmologists grapple with these questions.

Speaker profile:

Professor Licia Verde is an Italian cosmologist and theoretical physicist. She is currently Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Barcelona. Her research interests include large-scale structure, dark energy, inflation and the cosmic microwave background. She received a Laurea degree in 1996 from University of Padua and a PhD in 2000 from the University of Edinburgh. She did her postdoctoral study at Princeton University and joined the faculty of The University of Pennsylvania in 2003. From 2007, Prof Verde became ICREA Professor at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) She was a Professor II at the University of Oslo during the period 2013-2016. Prof Verde was editor of the Physics of the Dark Universe Journal and is currently editor of the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. As of January 2019 she is the chair of the science advisory board of the arXiv.