In 2019 we lost an incredibly important member of the CIUK Scientific Advisory Committee with the sudden and unexpected passing of Jacky Pallas at the age of just 54. Jacky was head of e-Research at King's College London and for the previous three years had been an active and vocal member of the CIUK SAC, helping to shape the direction our event has taken and pushing through many positive changes, whilst championing diversity and the inclusion of young researchers.
In her memory, and in recognition of her passion for our conference, we introduced an annual award that will highlight the work of an early career researcher and will allow the award winner a slot in the main programme at CIUK. Researchers will be nominated by their supervisors and we are looking for nominations for presentations that highlight the impact of a project that early career researchers have been working on.
Congratulations to the winner of the CIUK 2021 Jacky Pallas Memorial Award... Dr Niall Jeffrey
Abstract: In the Dark Energy Survey (DES), we have created the largest ever map of dark matter – invisible matter thought to account for 80% of the total matter of the Universe – using gravitational lensing of galaxies. I will share the exciting developments used for this cosmic cartography over a quarter of the Southern Hemisphere. Exploiting this map to understand the unknown physics of the Universe, in the DiRAC project “Likelihood-free inference with the Dark Energy Survey", we combine GPU-accelerated cosmological simulations with novel artificial intelligence techniques. By using deep learning in a Bayesian framework, I will demonstrate how we can now quantify our belief in different cosmological models using information encoded in the new DES map.
Bio: Niall's research interests combine cosmology, statistical methods and machine learning. After completing his MSci in Theoretical Physics at Imperial College London, he completed his PhD at University College London supervised by Prof. Ofer Lahav. It was during his PhD that he became involved in the Dark Energy Survey and the European Space Agency's future Euclid mission.
