The Grainger College of Engineering
Physics

Wandelt receives Xerox Faculty Research Award

2/19/2009

Benjamin Wandelt, associate professor of physics and of astronomy, has been selected for a College of Engineering 2009 Xerox Award for Faculty Research.

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Benjamin Wandelt, associate professor of physics and of astronomy, will receive a College of Engineering Xerox Award for Faculty Research on Tuesday, April 28.  This award is made annually to four associate professors in the College of Engineering in recognition of outstanding research conducted during the previous five years.  Wandelt was cited for exemplary research in developing innovative new algorithms and computational methods to make the analysis of huge astrophysical datasets tractable.

Wandelt's primary research interests are theoretical cosmology, structure formation, dark matter, large-scale structure, the early universe, and the application of mathematical, statistical, and computational methods to theory and observations in cosmology.  He is one of the authors of HEALPix, software which allows for quick and accurate analysis of extremely large full-sky data sets, notably the information gained from space probes about the cosmic microwave background.  He is also the creator of cosmology@home,a distributed computing project that is searching for the cosmological model that best describes our Universe and is identifying the range of models that agree with the available astronomical and particle physics data.

Madeline Stover is a physics doctoral student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign studying atmospheric dynamics applied to forest conservation. She interns as a science writer for Illinois Physics, where she also co-hosts the podcast Emergence along with fellow physics graduate student Mari Cieszynski. When Stover is not doing research or communications, she enjoys hosting her local radio show, singing with her band, and cooking with friends.

Daniel Inafuku graduated from Illinois Physics with a PhD and now works as a science writer. At Illinois, he conducted scientific research in mathematical biology and mathematical physics. In addition to his research interests, Daniel is a science video media creator.

Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, Ph. D. is a science writer and an educator. She teaches college and high school physics and mathematics courses, and her writing has been published in popular science outlets such as WIRED, Scientific American, Physics World, and New Scientist. She earned a Ph. D. in Physics from UIUC in 2019 and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Jamie Hendrickson is a writer and content creator in higher education communications. They earned their M.A. in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2021. In addition to their communications work, they are a published area studies scholar and Russian-to-English translator.

Garrett R. Williams is an Illinois Physics Ph.D. Candidate and science writer. He has been recognized as the winner of the 2020 APS History of Physics Essay Competition and as a finalist in the 2021 AAAS Science and Human Rights Essay Competition. He was also an invited author in the 2021 #BlackinPhysics Week series published by Physics Today and Physics World. 

 

Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, Ph. D. is a science writer and an educator. She teaches college and high school physics and mathematics courses, and her writing has been published in popular science outlets such as WIRED, Scientific American, Physics World, and New Scientist. She earned a Ph. D. in Physics from UIUC in 2019 and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.

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This story was published February 19, 2009.