Special Physics Presentation | Journey into the World of Particle Physics and the Cosmos — and a Call for a More Just Practice of Science

This presentation will live stream on the U-M Poverty Solutions Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eaca6llnjhs

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein's research focuses on theoretical work at the intersection of particle physics, cosmology, and astrophysics. She is interested in scalar dark matter candidates such as axions and axion-like particles, as well as neutron stars and inflationary cosmology. She is a member of the LSST Dark Matter Group and the STROBE-X Science Working Group, where she leads Team STROBE-Ax. Before coming to the University of New Hampshire, she held a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellowship at Goddard Space Flight Center, a Martin Luther King Postdoctoral Fellowship in Physics at MIT, and was a research associate at the University of Washington.

In her book, "The Disordered Cosmos", Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein shares her love for physics, from the Standard Model of Particle Physics and what lies beyond it, to the physics of melanin in skin, to the latest theories of dark matter — all with a new spin informed by history, politics, and the wisdom of Star Trek.

One of the leading physicists of her generation, Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is also one of fewer than one hundred Black American women to earn a Ph.D. from a department of physics. Her vision of the cosmos is vibrant, buoyantly non-traditional, and grounded in Black feminist traditions.

Prescod-Weinstein urges us to recognize how science, like most fields, is rife with racism, sexism, and other dehumanizing systems. She lays out a bold new approach to science and society that begins with the belief that we all have a fundamental right to know and love the night sky. The Disordered Cosmos dreams into existence a world that allows everyone to experience and understand the wonders of the universe.

This presentation is co-sponsored by the Poverty Solutions of the U-M and the U-M Department of Physics.