معرفی
Katherine Freese is the Jeff & Gail Endowed Chair of Physics at the University of Texas at Austin and a Guest Professor at Stockholm University. She previously held the George E. Uhlenbeck Professor of Physics position at the University of Michigan until her move to Texas in 2019. Freese is renowned for her work in theoretical cosmology and astroparticle physics, focusing on dark matter, dark energy, and models of the early universe. She received a $13M grant (2014–2024) for cosmoparticle physics research at Stockholm University and served as Director of NORDITA (Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics) from 2014 to 2016.
Education: B.A. in Physics from Princeton University (1977), M.A. from Columbia University (1981), and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (1984). She held postdoctoral positions at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the Institute for Theoretical Physics (Santa Barbara), and a Presidential Fellowship at UC Berkeley. Her career milestones include becoming the first woman on the physics faculty at the University of Michigan and being elected to the National Academy of Sciences (2020).
Research Interests:
- Dark Matter and Dark Energy detection
- Dark Stars (first stars powered by dark matter annihilation)
- Primordial Black Hole formation
- Early universe inflationary models
- cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments
- Paleo-detector methods using ancient minerals
Publications Trends: Her recent work emphasizes observational cosmology (e.g., JWST and SPIDER experiments), dark matter detection strategies, and redefining inflationary scenarios. She has explored novel stellar phenomena like dark stars as potential seeds for supermassive black holes, and proposed interdisciplinary approaches like using minerals as paleo-detectors for neutrinos and dark matter.
Awards:
- 2021: University of Chicago Alumni Professional Achievement Award
- 2019: Lilienfeld Prize for bridging cosmology and particle physics
- 2012: Honorary Doctorate from Stockholm University
- Simons Foundation Fellowship (2012)
- APS Fellow
Advising & Grants: Supervised over 20 students and postdocs, many now leading roles in academia and industry. Grants include NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award (1990–1995) and a decade-long Stockholm University grant. Her research teams collaborate on CMB projects (Simons Observatory, LiteBIRD) and dark matter searches (DAMA/LIBRA, IceCube). She co-leads global initiatives like the Cosmic Microwave Background collaboration and paleo-detector networks.
Labs & Teams: Active in the Physics Randall Lab (formerly at Michigan), the Weinberg Institute for Theoretical Physics, and the Nordita institute. Collaborates with SPIDER balloon teams and the Simons Observatory for CMB studies. Also involved in James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) analyses and mineral-based detection projects.
