Edmund Bertschinger


Edmund Bertschinger is an American theoretical astrophysicist and cosmologist and professor of physics at MIT.

Career

Bertschinger received his bachelor's degree in physics from Caltech in 1979, and his Ph.D. degree in astrophysical science from Princeton University in 1984. He held postdoctoral positions at the University of Virginia and UC Berkeley, then went to MIT as an assistant professor of physics in 1986 becoming a full professor in 1996. He served as head of the physics department from 2007-2013 and currently serves as the Institute Community and Equity Officer. He has served on various committees promoting women and minorities in astronomy and physics. He has received numerous fellowships and awards including the Guggenheim Fellowship and Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy. He was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society.

Research

Bertschinger is known for his work on large-scale simulations of galaxy formation, the study of galaxy velocity fields, and various problems in relativistic astrophysics. He has made substantial contributions to cosmological perturbation theory and structure formation in the universe.

Selected publications