UA Cosmologist Eduardo Rozo Earns $750K DOE Award
The assistant professor of physics is the first UA faculty member to receive the award of $750,000 over five years.

UA Office for Research & Discovery

May 25, 2016

Eduardo Rozo, University of Arizona assistant professor of physics, has been selected by the Department of Energy to receive funding through its prestigious Early Career Research Program. Rozo, among 49 researchers selected this year, will receive $750,000 over the course of five years to support his research.

The program, now in its seventh year, promotes scientific advancement in the United States by supporting exceptional researchers early in their careers. Rozo is the second researcher in Arizona to receive the award — and the first for the UA.

"We invest in promising young researchers early in their careers to support lifelong discovery science to fuel the nation's innovation system," said Cherry Murray, director of the DOE's Office of Science. "We are proud of the accomplishments these young scientists already have made, and look forward to following their achievements in years to come."

"At the University of Arizona, we believe that investing in the research efforts of our junior faculty is essential to the future of all scientific innovation," said Kimberly Andrews Espy, the UA's senior vice president for research. "I am incredibly proud of Dr. Rozo's achievement in receiving this award from the DOE."

Rozo's research project, "Constraining Dark Energy With Galaxy Clusters and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations," seeks to explain why — despite the force of gravity pulling inward — the expansion of the universe is not slowing down. Instead, it's speeding up.

According to Rozo, a mysterious substance called "dark energy" is pushing the universe to expand. Using data from the Dark Energy Survey, Rozo will study the echo of the Big Bang in the distribution of galaxies in the universe, and how clusters of galaxies form across cosmic times. By combining the two measurements, he hopes to shine a light on dark energy and its physical properties.

"As a cosmologist, this is a great time to be alive," Rozo said. "We have this tremendous, really interesting puzzle, and a treasure trove of tools to solve it. I am positively delighted about receiving this award. It's really quite exciting, and I’m glad to have the opportunity to focus on my research for the next several years."