Penn Arts and Sciences Professors named Fellows of the American Physical Society
Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor in the Natural Sciences Bhuvnesh Jain and Fay R. and Eugene L. Langberg Professor of Physics Mark Trodden, both in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, have been elected to Fellowship in the American Physical Society. Election to Fellowship is limited to one-half of one percent of the membership of the APS, and is recognition by their peers of their outstanding contributions to physics.
Jain’s election honored his “groundbreaking work in astrophysics and cosmology including the areas of theoretical modeling of cosmological phenomena, measurement and interpretation of cosmological weak lensing, and the interface of gravity theories and experimental tests.” He is studying how small fluctuations in the early universe grew to form the large-scale structure seen today, a process tied to the nature of dark matter and dark energy. Gravitational lensing, the shearing and magnification of light we receive from distant galaxies, is a powerful probe of these cosmological puzzles. His work in weak lensing—the small distortions in the shapes of distant galaxies—is helping to map the mass distribution of galaxy clusters and the large-scale structure of the universe.
Co-Director of Penn’s Center for Particle Cosmology, Jain is involved in galaxy imaging surveys including the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and in the planning of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) and the space mission Euclid. He is a member of the board of the DES project, the co-spokesperson of LSST, and the co-coordinator of the DES Weak Lensing Working Group. He edited the Focus Issue on Gravitational Lensing of the New Journal of Physics. Jain earned his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Trodden was honored “for pioneering work in theoretical cosmology and astroparticle physics, including explorations of theoretical explanations for the acceleration of the universe.” He is constructing and investigating models that may shed light on the fundamental physics origin of currently unsolved problems including cosmic acceleration, the nature of dark matter, and the fundamental origin of inflation. He’s also interested in the role that cosmological data can play in informing models of particle physics. This has included investigating the microphysical implications of exotic dark energy models and proposing one of the most-studied approaches to the idea that a modification of general relativity may explain cosmic acceleration.
Department chair and co-director of the Center for Particle Cosmology, Trodden also edits the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Physics Letters B, and New Journal of Physics; and is an Editorial Advisory Board member of the Multiversal Journeys Series. He earned his Ph.D. from Brown University.
The American Physical Society (APS) is a non-profit membership organization working to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics through its outstanding research journals, scientific meetings, and education, outreach, advocacy, and international activities. APS represents over 51,000 members, including physicists in academia, national laboratories, and industry in the United States and throughout the world.
