Biography:Laura Newburgh
Laura Newburgh | |
|---|---|
| Alma mater | Columbia University (Ph.D., 2010) |
| Known for | CHIME, HIRAX, Simons Observatory |
| Awards |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Experimental cosmology, radio astronomy, cosmic microwave background |
| Institutions | Yale University |
Laura B. Newburgh is an American experimental cosmologist and associate professor of physics at Yale University, where she is a member of the Wright Laboratory and the Department of Astronomy.[1][2] She builds instruments for radio telescopes and CMB telescopes to probe dark energy, dark matter, neutrino mass, and cosmic inflation.[3] She is a member of the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), the Hydrogen Intensity Real-time Analysis eXperiment (HIRAX), the Simons Observatory, and CMB-S4.[1]
Education and career
Newburgh received her Ph.D. in physics from Columbia University in 2010, where she worked on the Q/U Imaging ExperimenT (QUIET), a ground-based CMB polarization experiment designed to measure the B-mode polarization signal from inflation.[1][3] As a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University from 2010 to 2013, she worked on low-temperature detector characterization, integration, and deployment for ACTPol, the polarization-sensitive receiver on the Atacama Cosmology Telescope.[1]
From 2013 to 2016, Newburgh was a Dunlap Fellow at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, where she began working on novel calibration methods for CHIME, developing a holographic technique to map the telescope beam.[4][5]
Newburgh joined Yale University as an assistant professor of physics in January 2017.[4] She was subsequently promoted to associate professor.[2]
Research
Newburgh's research spans instrumentation, calibration, and data analysis for both 21 cm radio cosmology and CMB experiments. Her work focuses on using these complementary probes to constrain the expansion history of the universe and the properties of fundamental particles.
CHIME
Newburgh is a member of the CHIME collaboration, a radio telescope at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory in British Columbia designed to map the distribution of neutral hydrogen across cosmic time using the 21 cm emission line. Her primary contribution has been developing the holographic beam calibration technique for CHIME, in which a calibration source on a separate steerable dish tracks celestial sources as they transit through CHIME's beam, enabling precise measurement of the telescope's response pattern.[5] This calibration work was critical to estimating the brightness of a fast radio burst detected from a Galactic magnetar in 2020, enabling CHIME to link FRBs to magnetar emission for the first time.[6]
CHIME has also become one of the most prolific detectors of fast radio bursts, cataloging 536 FRBs in its first year of operation alone.[7] In 2022, the CHIME collaboration published the first detection of cosmological 21 cm emission, a measurement of the large-scale clustering of hydrogen gas that represents a first step toward using intensity mapping to measure baryon acoustic oscillations and constrain dark energy.[2]
Her group at Yale has also developed a drone-based beam calibration system, flying radio sources on drones above radio telescopes to produce high-resolution beam maps. This technique, funded by her NSF CAREER Award, has been deployed on CHIME and on prototype arrays for CHIME outriggers.[8][9]
HIRAX
Newburgh is a co-designer of the Hydrogen Intensity Real-time Analysis eXperiment (HIRAX), a planned array of 1024 six-meter radio dishes in South Africa that will map large-scale structure using 21 cm intensity mapping between redshifts 0.8 and 2.5 to constrain dark energy and detect radio transients.[10]
Simons Observatory and CMB-S4
Newburgh works on the Simons Observatory, a ground-based CMB telescope in the Atacama Desert in Chile that achieved first light in 2024.[3] Her group contributes to data acquisition software development for the observatory's Large Aperture Telescope. She is also a member of CMB-S4, the planned next-generation CMB experiment.[1]
Awards and honors
- 2024 – Buchalter Cosmology Prize, First Prize (shared with the CHIME collaboration), for the detection of cosmological 21 cm emission[2]
- 2022 – Lancelot M. Berkeley – New York Community Trust Prize for Meritorious Work in Astronomy (shared with the CHIME/FRB team), for breakthroughs in understanding fast radio bursts[5]
- 2020 – Princeton Rising Stars in Physics[11]
- 2018 – NSF CAREER Award[8]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 "Laura Newburgh". Yale University Department of Physics. https://physics.yale.edu/people/laura-newburgh.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "Newburgh and CHIME awarded 2024 Buchalter Cosmology Prize". Wright Laboratory, Yale University. 16 January 2025. https://wlab.yale.edu/news/newburgh-and-chime-awarded-2024-buchalter-cosmology-prize.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Newburgh Lab – Experimental Cosmology". Yale University. https://campuspress.yale.edu/newburgh/.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Prof. Laura Newburgh". Dunlap Institute, University of Toronto. https://www.dunlap.utoronto.ca/dunlap-people/dr-laura-newburgh-3/.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Physicist Laura Newburgh to share 2022 Berkeley Prize". Yale University Department of Physics. November 2021. https://physics.yale.edu/news/physicist-laura-newburgh-share-2022-berkeley-prize.
- ↑ "Assistant professor Laura Newburgh interprets a magnetar's message". Yale University Department of Physics. https://physics.yale.edu/news/assistant-professor-laura-newburgh-interprets-magnetar-s-message.
- ↑ The CHIME/FRB Collaboration (2021). "The First CHIME/FRB Fast Radio Burst Catalog". The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series 257 (2): 59. doi:10.3847/1538-4365/ac33ab. Bibcode: 2021ApJS..257...59C.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Laura Newburgh (Assistant Professor of Physics) has been awarded an NSF CAREER Award". Yale University Department of Physics. https://physics.yale.edu/news/laura-newburgh-assistant-professor-physics-has-been-awarded-nsf-career-award.
- ↑ Tyndall, W. (2025). "Beam Maps of the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) Measured With a Drone". IEEE Open Journal of Antennas and Propagation.
- ↑ Newburgh, L. B. (2016). "HIRAX: A Probe of Dark Energy and Radio Transients".
- ↑ "Laura Newburgh". Princeton University. https://physicsrisingstars2020.princeton.edu/people/laura-newburgh.
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