Asantha CoorayAssociate Professor and Chancellor's Fellow, Physics & Astronomy |
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Research Interests |
Cosmology, Early Universe, Cosmic Microwave Background, Gravitational Waves, Gravity, Large Scale Structure, Planetary Systems | |
| URL | For research interests, activities and more visit www.cooray.org | |
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Academic Distinctions |
NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award 2007 Chancellor's Fellow, UC Irvine 2007-2010 UCI Chancellor's Award for Excellence and Distinguished Fostering of Undergraduate Research 2007 Sherman Fairchild Senior Research Fellow, Caltech, 2001 2000 Sugarman Award For Excellence in Research, Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago McCormick Fellow, U. of Chicago Physical Sciences Division (1997-2000) 1999 Sigma Xi Grant-In-Aid of Research, University of Chicago Member, Sigma Pi Sigma, Physics Honor Society Member, Sigma Xi, Science Honor Society Offered, but declined: Chandar Fellowship (NASA, 2001); Lyman Spiter, Jr. Fellowship (Princeton University, 2001); Keck Fellowship (Institute for Advanced Study, 2001); Leverhlume Fellowship (Oxford University 2001); Miller Fellowship (University of California at Berkeley, 2001) |
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| Appointments |
Research Fellow, University of Chicago (2001) Sherman Fairchild Senior Research Fellow, Caltech (2001-2005) |
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Research Abstract |
Associate Professor Cooray received his bachelor's degrees in Physics, Earth Sciences, and Mathematics from MIT in 1997 and his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from University of Chicago in 2001. He was the Sherman Fairchild Senior Research Fellow at Caltech before joining the UCI Department of Physics and Astronomy in 2005 as an Assistant Professor. Prof. Cooray was promoted to an Associate Professor with tenure in 2007 and was also named a Chancellor's Fellow between 2007 and 2010. As a cosmologist, Prof. Cooray's research attempts to understand how the Universe turned out to be the way it is from a primordial soup of particles just after the big bang to galaxies, stars, and planets we see today. He is actively participating in several NASA and European Space Agency missions to study the early universe with cosmic microwave background radiation, to search for first stars and galaxies with rocket-borne infrared cameras, and working out challenges and techniques to detect relic gravitational waves from the big bang present today. Prof. Cooray's current research is funded by NASA (for the CIBER project led by JPL and for US participants in Herschel-SPIRE Instrument Science Team), Department of Energy (through a joint project between UCI and Los Alamos on dark energy funded through Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics at Los Alamos National Laboratory), and, from summer 2007, through a faculty early career development award (CAREER award) from the National Science Foundation. His website (see URL above) has details of his current research activities, his group, publications, among others. Undergraduate students from Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics and related fields are strongly encouraged to join Prof. Cooray's group for research activities in cosmology and astrophysics. Current and past students have published research papers in journals and are now conducting graduate studies elsewhere. In general, you must be a sophomore or higher and have some background in using computers (some programming experience is highly desirable, but not a necessary requirement). Projects are available for both pay and credit during the academic year and for pay during the summer. These projects generally require at least a one year of commitment, part-time during the academic year and full-time during the summer. Physics juniors are encouraged to write and publish their research project as a senior thesis under the campus honors porgram. Similar opportunities to complete senior projects are available for students majoring in computer science departments involving projects in computational astrophysics. If interested, please contact Prof. Cooray at accoray@uci.edu for details. Research opportunities for graduate students are limited and mostly available only for graduate students in the Physics department. If interested, please visit Prof. Cooray's webiste for details on any new vacancies that might be available. |
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| Grants | NSF Astronomy Division CAREER Award (2007-2012) | |
| NASA Support for US-based Scientists in Herschel-SPIRE Science Team (2007-) | ||
| LANL-IGPP Support for Dark Energy (joint UCI-LANL project; 2006-2008) | ||
| NASA Astronomy and Physics Research and Analysis Support for Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRiment, CIBER (2007-2009) | ||
| Space Telescope Science Institute Archival Analysis - IR Background with NICMOS, 2007 | ||
| Space Telescope Science Institute Theoretical Research - Reionization and First Galaxies in Numerical Simulations, 2007 | ||
| Spitzer Science Center Archival Analysis - IR Background with Spitzer IRAC, 2007 | ||
| Spitzer Legacy General Observer Program (Cycle 4; as Co-I), The Spitzer Deep, Wide-Field Survey, 2007 | ||
| Research Center | Center for Cosmology | |
| Link to this profile | http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=5121 | |
| Last updated | 05/12/2010 | |