Licia Verde (born 14 October 1971, Venice, Italy) is an Italian cosmologist and theoretical physicist and currently ICREA Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the

University of Barcelona The University of Barcelona ( ca, Universitat de Barcelona, UB; ; es, link=no, Universidad de Barcelona) is a public university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia, in Spain. With 63,000 students, it is one of the biggest universities i ...

. Her research interests include large-scale structure,

dark matter Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe. Dark matter is called "dark" because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means it does not a ...

dark energy In physical cosmology and astronomy, dark energy is an unknown form of energy that affects the universe on the largest scales. The first observational evidence for its existence came from measurements of supernovas, which showed that the univ ...

inflation In economics, inflation is an increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reduct ...

and the

cosmic microwave background In Big Bang cosmology the cosmic microwave background (CMB, CMBR) is electromagnetic radiation that is a remnant from an early stage of the universe, also known as "relic radiation". The CMB is faint cosmic background radiation filling all spac ...

. She received a Laurea degree in 1996 from

University of Padua The University of Padua ( it, Università degli Studi di Padova, UNIPD) is an Italian university located in the city of Padua, region of Veneto, northern Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from ...

and a PhD in 2000 from the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

, working with Sabino Matarrese and Alan F. Heavens. She did postdoctoral study at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

and joined the faculty of

The University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

in 2003. From September 2007, Verde is an ICREA Professor at the ICCUB of the

. She was a Professor II at the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...

during 2013 to 2016. Verde was editor of the Physics of the Dark Universe Journal and is currently deputy scientific director of the

Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics The ''Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics'' is an online-only peer-reviewed scientific journal focusing on all aspects of cosmology and astroparticle physics. This encompasses theory, observation, experiment, computation and simulatio ...

. As of 1 January 2019 she is the chair of the science advisory board of the

arXiv arXiv (pronounced "archive"—the X represents the Greek letter chi ⟨χ⟩) is an open-access repository of electronic preprints and postprints (known as e-prints) approved for posting after moderation, but not peer review. It consists of ...

. She is known primarily for work on large-scale structure, analysis of the WMAP data and development of rigorous statistical tools to analyse surveys of the universe. She is a highly cited author. She appeared in the movie '' The Laws of Thermodynamics'' and is featured in the PBS show

Closer to Truth ''Closer to Truth'' is a television series on public television originally created, produced and hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn. The original series aired in 2000 for two seasons, followed by a second series aired in 2003 for a single season. Th ...

in its 2020 season.

Early life and education

Licia Verde was born in Venice, Italy where she grew up. She attended the Liceo classico Marco Polo before she started her undergraduate studies at the

. She moved to the

in the fall of 1994, first as an Erasmus and later as a PhD student.

Career

Verde was a research associate at the Dept. of Astrophysical Sciences,

during 2000 to 2003. In 2003, she joined the faculty of the Physics and Astronomy Dept. of the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

and remained there until the end of 2007. Since 2008, she is ICREA Professor of Cosmology at the

in Spain. She has also held several faculty visiting positions: Visiting Scholar at the

IAS IAS may refer to: Science * Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, New Jersey, United States * Image Analysis & Stereology, the official journal of the International Society for Stereology & Image Analysis. * Iowa Archeological Society, Uni ...

in Princeton, USA (2005); Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Dept. of Astrophysical Sciences of

(2007-2009); Scientific Associate at CERN (2012-2013); Professor II of Physics and Astronomy at the

(2013-2016) and Radcliffe Fellow at the

Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University—also known as the Harvard Radcliffe Institute—is a part of Harvard University that fosters interdisciplinary research across the humanities, sciences, social sciences, arts, a ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

(2015-2016). In 2019 she was appointed chair of the science advisory board of the

and in 2020 co-lead scientific editor of ''

''.

Honors and awards

* Performance prize from Aldo Gini Foundation (1995) * Dewar & Ritchie Award from the

(1996) * Foundation Blanceflor-Boncompagni Ludovisi née Bildt Award (1997) * Prize STET Guglielmo Reis Romoli from Gruppo STET (1997) * Amelia Earhart Award from

Zonta International Zonta International is an international service organization with the mission of advancing the status of women. Alan Axelrod, ''International Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Fraternal Orders'', New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1997, p. 271. ...

Foundation * Chandra Fellowship (2002) *

Niels Bohr Niels Henrik David Bohr (; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922 ...

Lecture (2004) “Cosmology from the Cosmic microwave background and galaxy surveys”,

Niels Bohr Institute The Niels Bohr Institute (Danish: ''Niels Bohr Institutet'') is a research institute of the University of Copenhagen. The research of the institute spans astronomy, geophysics, nanotechnology, particle physics, quantum mechanics and biophysics ...

NASA Group Achievement Award The NASA Group Achievement Award (GAA) is an award given by NASA to groups of government or non-government personnel in recognition of group accomplishments contributing to NASA's mission. The criteria for earning the Group Achievement Award are ...

(2007) for the results of the

WMAP The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), originally known as the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP and Explorer 80), was a NASA spacecraft operating from 2001 to 2010 which measured temperature differences across the sky in the cosmic mic ...

mission * European Research Council (ERC) (2009) ERC starting award * Svein Rosseland Lecture, “Big questions about the Universe”,

Oslo University The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...

(2012) * Rosenblum Lecture, “Connecting Cosmology to fundamental physics: examples”,

Hebrew University The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...

(2012) *

Gruber Prize in Cosmology The Gruber Prize in Cosmology, established in 2000, is one of three prestigious international awards worth US$500,000 made by the Gruber Foundation, a non-profit organization based at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Since 2001, the G ...

(2012) *

Radcliffe Radcliffe or Radcliff may refer to: Places * Radcliffe Line, a border between India and Pakistan United Kingdom * Radcliffe, Greater Manchester ** Radcliffe Tower, the remains of a medieval manor house in the town ** Radcliffe tram stop * ...

Fellow (2015) *

ISI highly cited researcher The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) was an academic publishing service, founded by Eugene Garfield in Philadelphia in 1956. ISI offered scientometric and bibliographic database services. Its specialty was citation indexing and analysis, ...

(2015) * European Research Council (2016) ERC Consolidator award * Narcis Monturiol medal (2018) Medalla Narcis Monturiol. *

Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics is one of the Breakthrough Prizes, awarded by the Breakthrough Prize Board. Initially named Fundamental Physics Prize, it was founded in July 2012 by Russia-born Israeli entrepreneur, venture cap ...

(2018) Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics as part of the

team * National Research Award of Catalonia (2018) (Premi Nacional de Recerca) *

European Astronomical Society The European Astronomical Society (EAS) is a learned society, founded under the Swiss Civil Code in 1990, as an association to contribute and promote the advancement of astronomy in Europe, and to deal with astronomical matters at a European lev ...

Lodewijk Woltjer Lodewijk Woltjer (26 April 1930 – 25 August 2019) was an astronomer, and the son of astronomer Jan Woltjer. He studied at the University of Leiden under Jan Oort earning a PhD in astronomy in 1957 with a thesis on the Crab Nebula. This was foll ...

Lecture (2019) * Rey Jaime I Awards (2021) Fundamental Science Award

Research

Verde analyzed a powerful but challenging statistical property of galaxy surveys related to higher-order correlations. She showed that galaxies of the Anglo Australian Two-degrees galaxy redshift survey trace the distribution of

. This result indicated that the galaxy distribution can be used to study the dark matter one. After she joined the science team of the Microwave Anisotropy Probe, a

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

space mission to map the full sky at radio waves, Verde participated in analysis and interpretation of the Cosmic Microwave Background data from the WMAP satellite. Thanks to two ERC grants: Cosmological Physics with future large-scale structure surveys (Phys.LSS), and Beyond Precision Cosmology: dealing with Systematic Errors (BePreSyE) Verde has established a research group in physical cosmology at the University of Barcelona. Under her lead, the group has contributed to results from the Baryon Acoustic Oscillations Survey part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: measurements of the expansion history of the universe and the formation of cosmological structures as well as constraint on cosmological parameters describing structure and detailed composition of the cosmos. The other recent direction of Verde's research is on

. She has developed a model-independent way to study the Universe's expansion history and infer from there the physical properties of dark energy.

References

External links