On May 30, about 50 researchers came together on the 14th floor of Yale University’s Kline Tower for the first one-day workshop for the Yale Center for the Invisible Universe (YCIU), “Open Questions in the Invisible Universe”. The YCIU was created in 2024 to promote interdisciplinary research and innovation aimed at revealing the fundamental forces that govern the structure and dynamics of the invisible universe.
Most of the workshop attendees were faculty, postdocs, and graduate students from the Yale Astronomy and Physics Departments. The YCIU also invited speakers from other institutions, including Joe Formaggio (MIT), Savvas Koushiappas (Brown), Mariangela Lisanti (Princeton), Naoko Kurahashi Neilson (Drexel), and Alyson Brooks (Rutgers).
Larry Gladney, FAS Dean of Science, Phyllis A. Wallace Dean of Diversity and Faculty Development in the FAS, and professor of physics, gave the opening remarks, followed by four separate sessions with discussions about current research in dark matter and neutrinos. Then Meg Urry, Israel Munson Professor of Physics, and Chiara Mingarelli, assistant professor of physics, introduced an hour of lightning talks, which included slides presented by 12 postdocs and graduate students from the departments of astronomy and physics.
The workshop organizing committee included Karsten Heeger, YCIU co-director and Eugene Higgins Professor and Chair of Physics; Priyamvada Natarajan, YCIU co-director, Joseph S. and Sophia S. Fruton Professor of Astronomy, and professor of physics; Reina Maruyama YCIU co-director and professor of physics and astronomy; and Kristin Kampp, YCIU program coordinator. Elena Siuzdak, director of finance and administration for astronomy, and physics and Jennifer Ongley, physics chair’s assistant, provided additional logistical support for the workshop.
For more information, including the agenda, please see the workshop website: https://invisibleuniverse.yale.edu/yciu-workshop-info
Photo gallery: https://flic.kr/ps/46pAXd