Associate Professor
Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology
Stanford University
Risa Wechsler is a cosmologist whose work focuses on understanding the growth of structure in the universe, how structure formation drives galaxy formation, and how galaxies can be used to probe the fundamental physics of the universe, including the nature of dark matter and dark energy. Her group uses large computer simulations, models of galaxy formation, and the deepest and largest galaxy surveys to determine how the universe formed and evolved. She joined the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology and the faculty at Stanford and SLAC in 2006, and this fall she will become Director of the Institute. She was the Spokesperson of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument Collaboration from 2014-2018, and is a founding member of the dark energy survey (DES) and the LSST dark energy science collaboration. Before coming to Stanford, she was a Hubble Fellow and Enrico Fermi Fellow at the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago. Her work has appeared recently on the BBC’s Horizon and the Science Channel’s Spaces Deepest Secrets.