Arielle Phillips
University of Massachusetts, Dept. of Astronomy,
FCAD Research, Education Postdoctoral Fellow

Arielle Phillips is on the faculty of Amherst College. She studies large scale structure in the universe, working on predicting and teasing out the signature of an elusive component of matter, called the WHIM, which is interwoven between galaxies. Her research and studies have led her to such places as the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Victoria, Canada, the Canada France Hawaii Telescope on the Big Island in Hawaii, and Caltech. She is also interested in the history and literature of Astronomy as well as dance, and developed a unique course on science and theater at Amherst.

Peter Garnavich
University of Notre Dame, Dept. of Astronomy,
Professor of Astrophysics/Cosmology Physics

Peter Garnavich is a professor of physics at the University of Notre Dame. He has been a researcher at MIT, Harvard, and the Space Telescope Science Institute, studying interacting binary stars, gamma-ray bursts and supernovae.  Peter is part of the team of astronomers that in 1998 discovered that the Universe is  dominated by an enigmatic dark energy. For this discovery his group recently shared the Gruber Prize in Cosmology.