Biographie

Afshordi obtained his PhD in Astrophysical Sciences from Princeton University in 2004. He was then an inaugural postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Theory and Computation at Harvard University, and then a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. In 2009, he joined the department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo, where he is currently Associate Professor, jointly appointed as Associate Faculty in Cosmology and Gravitation at the neighbouring Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. He has won several international awards and recognitions, including the Buchalter Cosmology prize in 2016 and 2019 from the American Astronomical Society, the Vainu Bappu Gold Medal in 2011 from the Astronomical Society of India, and the Early Researcher Award in 2011 from the Government of Ontario. Afshordi’s research program focuses on interdisciplinary approaches that shed novel light onto fundamental problems in physics and astrophysics. He has made important contributions to both theoretical and observational aspects of cosmology and astrophysics. These range from novel statistical methods to extract small signals by using cross-correlation techniques to novel models for big bang, dark energy, black holes, and quantum gravity. His research has been featured in numerous popular media outlets such as the covers of Scientific American and Science Magazine, as well as the Guardian and the New York Times.