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CMU cosmologist in panel at physicists' meeting
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During today's session of the meeting of the American Physical Society at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Carnegie Mellon University cosmologist Tiziana Di Matteo spoke on a panel on computational physics. Her work on black holes and the evolution of the cosmos is based on computer modeling to simulate galaxy formation using the TeraGrid system at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. The session was closed to the public.
In her abstract for a paper for the conference, she wrote, "Many of the advances in our understanding of cosmic structure have come from direct computer modeling." Simulations can cover many space and time factors, she wrote, including, "the effect of gravitational fields generated by [dark matter in] superclusters of galaxies on the formation of galaxies, which in turn harbor gas that cools and makes stars and is being funneled into supermassive blackholes the size of the solar system."
Dr. Di Matteo was a recipient of the 2008 Award for Excellence from the Carnegie Science Center and has served on a number of NASA and National Science Foundation review panels for the division of astronomical sciences. She is a member of the executive committee for the APS division of computational physics.
First Published March 20, 2009 12:00 am
