John M. Kovac

John M Kovac
Residence United States
Nationality American
Fields Experimental Physics and Cosmology
Institutions Caltech
Harvard
Alma mater

Princeton University

University of Chicago
Thesis Detection of Polarization in the Cosmic Microwave Background using DASI
Doctoral advisor John Carlstrom
Known for BICEP2, BICEP and Keck Array

John M. Kovac (born 1970) is an American physicist and astronomer. His cosmology research, conducted at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, focuses on observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) to reveal signatures of the physics that drove the birth of the universe, the creation of its structure, and its present-day expansion. Currently, Kovac is an Associate Professor of Astronomy and Physics at Harvard University.[1]

Career

He is the principal investigator of the BICEP2 telescope, which is part of the BICEP and Keck Array series of experiments.[2][3][4] Measurements announced on 17 March 2014 from the BICEP2 telescope give support to the idea of cosmic inflation, by reporting the first evidence for a primordial B-Mode pattern in the polarization of the CMB.[5][6][7] If confirmed, this measurement provides a direct image of primordial gravitational waves and the quantization of gravity.

Prior to BICEP2, as a graduate student at the University of Chicago, Kovac worked on the Degree Angular Scale Interferometer led by John Carlstrom, which in 2002 announced the first detection of polarization in the CMB.[8] In 2003, Kovac moved to Caltech as a Millikan Postdoctoral Fellow, beginning work under Andrew Lange on the QUaD telescope and on BICEP1, the predecessor of BICEP2. After BICEP1's deployment to the South Pole in 2006, at Lange's invitation Kovac joined the research faculty of Caltech as a Kilroy Fellow and led the team that proposed BICEP2. In 2009 Kovac joined the faculty at Harvard University.[9]

Education and early life

Kovac was born in Princeton, New Jersey. He attended Jesuit High School in Tampa, Florida.[10] He received a bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Princeton University. He went on to the University of Chicago to receive a Masters and Doctorate in Physics in 2004. His thesis advisor was John Carlstrom.

Awards

In 2013 Kovac received the National Science Foundation Career Award.[11] In 2011 Kovac was selected as a Sloan Research Fellow.[12] He was awarded the 2002 - 2003 Sugarman Award by the Enrico Fermi Institute.

References

  1. ↑ "Harvard Astronomy Department Website".
  2. ↑ "BICEP2 Website".
  3. ↑ "Award Abstract #0742818 Collaborative Research: BICEP2 and SPUD - A Search for Inflation with Degree-Scale Polarimetry from the South Pole". NSF.
  4. ↑ "Award Abstract #1044978 Collaborative Research: BICEP2 and SPUD - A Search for Inflation with Degree-Scale Polarimetry from the South Pole". NSF.
  5. ↑ Overbye, Dennis. "Space Ripples Reveal Big Bang's Smoking Gun". New York Times. Retrieved 19 March 2014.
  6. ↑ Overbye, Dennis (24 March 2014). "Ripples From the Big Bang". New York Times. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  7. ↑ BICEP2 Collaboration, BICEP2; R Ade, P. A.; Aikin, R. W.; Barkats, D.; Benton, S. J.; Bischoff, C. A.; Bock, J. J.; Brevik, J. A.; Buder, I.; Bullock, E.; Dowell, C. D.; Duband, L.; Filippini, J. P.; Fliescher, S.; Golwala, S. R.; Halpern, M.; Hasselfield, M.; Hildebrandt, S. R.; Hilton, G. C.; Hristov, V. V.; Irwin, K. D.; Karkare, K. S.; Kaufman, J. P.; Keating, B. G.; Kernasovskiy, S. A.; Kovac, J. M.; Kuo, C. L.; Leitch, E. M.; Lueker, M.; et al. (2014). "BICEP2 I: Detection Of B-mode Polarization at Degree Angular Scales". arXiv:1403.3985Freely accessible [astro-ph.CO].
  8. ↑ Kovac, J. M.; et al. (Dec 2002). "Detection of polarization in the cosmic microwave background using DASI". Nature. 420 (6917): 772–787. arXiv:astro-ph/0209478Freely accessible. Bibcode:2002Natur.420..772L. doi:10.1038/nature01269. PMID 12490941.
  9. ↑ Cowen, Ron (31 March 2014). "Cosmology: Polar star". Nature. doi:10.1038/508028a. Retrieved 1 April 2014.
  10. ↑ Stockfisch, Jerome (19 March 2014). "Tampa education inspired head of Big Bang team". The Tampa Tribune. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  11. ↑ "John Kovac, Assistant Professor in Harvard's Astronomy and Physics departments, has been awarded the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award by the National Science Foundation". Retrieved 2014-03-27.
  12. ↑ "Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowships 2011" (PDF). Retrieved 2014-03-27.

External links

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