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Alex Van Engelen is the recipient of the 2017 Beatrice and Vincent Tremaine Fellowship

One of Alexander’s main research activities is the measurement of the gravitational lensing effect in the observed cosmic microwave background (CMB).  As CMB photons travel to us through nearly the entire observable Universe, their paths are slightly bent by intervening structure.  Although this is a subtle effect, it can be isolated with statistical estimators to create maps of all the matter between us and the CMB last-scattering surface.  These maps are sensitive to the evolution of structure across cosmic history and can probe the effects of both dark matter and dark energy.  Alexander is involved in the measurement of this effect with current data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, and is active in the planning for successor experiments including the Simons Observatory and CMB-Stage 4.  He is also involved in theoretical projects exploring the fundamental physics and the astrophysics that can be learned using upcoming CMB datasets, both on their own and together with cosmological data at other wavelengths.

Prior to coming to CITA as a postdoctoral fellow in the fall of 2014, Alexander earned his PhD from McGill University and was a postdoctoral researcher at Stony Brook University.  He has been a CITA senior research associate since the fall of 2017.

The Tremaine Fellowship is given annually in memory of Beatrice D. and Vincent J. Tremaine to honor their lifelong interest in mathematics, science and learning. The award was initially established at CITA by Vincent Tremaine in memory of his wife Beatrice when their son, Scott Tremaine, was the first director.

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