Licia Verde

Licia Verde is an Italian cosmologist and theoretical physicist currently serving as an ICREA Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Barcelona. She previously held faculty positions at the University of Pennsylvania (2003–2007) and as Professor II at the University of Oslo (2013–2016). She is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University and has held visiting roles at institutions like the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and CERN.

• Education
  • Laurea (1996) from the University of Padua
  • PhD (2000) from the University of Edinburgh under advisors Alan F. Heavens and Sabino Matarrese

Verde’s research focuses on cosmology, dark matter, dark energy, inflation, and cosmic microwave background (CMB) analysis. She is renowned for developing statistical tools to analyze galaxy surveys and CMB data from the WMAP mission, contributing to constraints on cosmological parameters and understanding the universe’s expansion history. Her work bridges large-scale structure studies with fundamental physics.

She has received numerous accolades, including the Gruber Prize in Cosmology (2012), Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (2018), and the European Research Council’s Starting and Consolidator awards. She chairs the arXiv Science Advisory Board and serves as Scientific Director of the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.