Tommaso Treu

Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy

Tommaso Treu is distinguished professor and vice-chair for astronomy and astrophysics, in the Physics and Astronomy Department. Prior to his current appointment at UCLA, he was a professor of physics at UC Santa Barbara, a NASA Hubble Fellow at UCLA, and a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech. He holds a PhD in Physics from the Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy. His research interests include fundamental physics and cosmology, galaxy formation and evolution, and supermassive black holes. He has received numerous awards, including the Newton Lacy Pierce Prize of the American Astronomical Society, the Newcomb Cleveland Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Packard and a Sloan Fellowship. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, American Astronomical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

What is the universe made of?

Ever since the dawn of time humans have been wondering "what is the universe made of"? Answering this question has led to fundamental advances and countless surprises, from the understanding of atoms and the periodic table to elements to the development of the standard model of particle physics. Perhaps the most surprising answer has been given by astronomical observations: the universe appears to be mostly made of "stuff" that we have never seen or interacted with on Earth. We call this "stuff" dark matter and dark energy. In this talk, Professor Treu will describe how this discovery came about and what we are doing to understand what dark matter and dark energy are.