Note: Sign up by 7/14/23 so that we have time to process your registration. Parking information will be sent to all attendees. This is a free event and is open to everyone.
Quarknet's Annual Program Presentations and Special Guest Lecture
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM Presentations by Quarknet Students
Students will make presentations on different aspects of Particle Physics, Cosmic Ray Detection, and Quantum Computing.
8:00 PM- 8:30 PM Break
A chance to socialize with students and with other Physics teachers.
8:30 PM - 9:30 PM Understanding Dwarf Galaxies to Understand Dark Matter
Keynote Speaker: Alyson Brooks, Assoc. Prof. of Physics & Astronomy at Rutgers University. See more information below.
Most of the matter in our Universe resides in an unknown component that we refer to as “dark matter.” There is six times more mass in dark matter than ordinary matter in the Universe. A model in which the Universe is dominated by cold dark matter (CDM) has been hugely successful in describing the observed evolution and large-scale structure of our Universe. Realistic simulations of galaxies like our Milky Way can be made using this model, but it is not clear if it can realistically model the hundreds of dwarf galaxies that surround our Galaxy. The masses of dwarf galaxies are dominated by dark matter, making them ideal places to understand the nature of dark matter.
Bio of Alyson Brooks:
Alyson Brooks is an associate professor of Physics & Astronomy at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She is also a part-time Research Scientist at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics through the summer of 2024. Dr. Brooks is a theoretical astrophysicist with expertise in both the formation of galaxies and astrophysical constraints on dark matter. She creates high resolution cosmological simulations of galaxies, with a particular focus on dwarf galaxies. Dr. Brooks earned a B.A. in physics from Macalester College in 2000 and a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Washington in 2008. She held postdoctoral fellowships at Caltech and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, before joining the faculty at Rutgers. Her research has been recognized with multiple awards, including a 2015 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and the 2019 Maria Goeppert Mayer award by the American Physical Society.