Mahlet Shiferaw

I am a Ph.D. Candidate in Physics, advised by Dr. Risa Wechsler. I study large-scale structure formation, which means that I try to model how the largest objects in our Universe -- galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and quasars -- came to form over time, and in particular, how they relate to dark matter. Improving our understanding of this connection is a key ingredient in our current cosmological model, and will help us answer some of the biggest questions in our field today; e.g., how much dark matter and dark energy is there? Because of the vast scales involved in my research, I typically work with huge datasets spanning billions of light-years, and think a lot about statistics, such as how clustered these objects are, how they are distributed relative to the distribution of dark matter, and how I can take advantage of tools like simulation-based inference. When I am not working, I love to draw and paint, run, and explore San Francisco.