Adrienne Erickcek

Adrienne Lynn Erickcek is an American theoretical cosmologist whose research aims at understanding cosmic inflation, dark matter, dark energy and chameleon particles, and alternatives to general relativity such as f(R) gravity. She is an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Education and career

Erickcek became interested in astrophysics very early in her life.[1] She was a high school student in Kalamazoo, Michigan,[2] and in 2013 nominated one of her physics teachers there, Michael Sinclair, for a national award as Inspirational Teacher of the Year.[3]

Erickcek majored in physics at Princeton University, graduating summa cum laude in 2003.[4] After a year in England studying for the Mathematical Tripos (master of advanced study) in Churchill College, Cambridge, supported by a Churchill Scholarship,[4][2] she entered the doctoral program in physics at the California Institute of Technology. She completed her Ph.D. there in 2009, with the dissertation The Consequences of Modifying Fundamental Cosmological Theories supervised by Marc Kamionkowski.[4][5][6]

She became a postdoctoral researcher in Canada at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics in Toronto and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. Next, she took an assistant professorship at the University of North Carolina in 2013. She was promoted to associate professor in 2019.[4]

Recognition

Erickcek was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2023, after a nomination from the APS Division of Astrophysics, "for theoretical contributions spanning cosmology, including inflation, cosmic acceleration, and dark matter, with a key focus on understanding primordial density perturbations on small distance scales".[7]

Personal life

Erickcek is married to Nicholas M. Law, an observational astronomer at the University of North Carolina.[5][1][8]

References
  1. "Adrienne Erickcek", Endeavors, University of North Carolina, October 4, 2017, retrieved 2023-10-23
  2. "Erickcek wins Churchill Scholarship for study at Cambridge", News from Princeton University, March 11, 2003, retrieved 2023-10-23
  3. Gebhard, Marissa (April 10, 2013), QuarkNet teacher named Inspirational Teacher of the Year, University of Notre Dame, retrieved 2023-10-23
  4. Curriculum vitae (PDF), May 27, 2022, retrieved 2023-10-23
  5. Erickcek, Adrienne Lynn (2009), "The Consequences of Modifying Fundamental Cosmological Theories", Caltech thesis library, California Institute of Technology, doi:10.7907/ST6B-1S91, retrieved 2023-10-23
  6. "Adrienne Lynn Erickcek", AstroGen, American Astronomical Society, retrieved 2023-10-23
  7. "Fellows nominated in 2023 by the Division of Astrophysics", APS Fellows archive, American Physical Society, retrieved 2023-10-23
  8. About the Law Astronomy Group, University of North Carolina, retrieved 2023-10-23
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