Dear All,

You are cordially invited to join the special colloquium to be delivered by Prof. Yin-Zhe MA on Jan 6, 2022 (Thursday). Please find the details as follows.

Topic: Cosmology: A Golden Era

Time & Date: 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm, Jan 6, 2022 (Thursday)

Venue: TD102

Speaker: Prof. Yin-Zhe MA

Host: Prof. Bowen XIAO, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen

Abstract: 

Cosmology, the understanding of the evolution of entire Universe, has progressed very fast in the past several decades with the advances of modern telescopes. I will give a brief overview of the modern cosmology of the last century and highlight its phenomenal successes and distinctive challenges. I will explain how and why the measurements of cosmic microwave background radiation, the relics of the primordial elements, and the galaxy distribution on large scales can improve our understanding of the hot big bang. Then I will also discuss its distinctive challenges, present the observational frontiers for this (next) decade of cosmology, highlighting where the new physics may possibly emerge.

About the Speaker:

Professor Yin-Zhe Ma obtained his Bachelor's degree in Physics from Nanjing University, a master's degree from the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (supervisor: Prof. Rong-Gen Cai), and a Ph.D. degree in Astronomy from the University of Cambridge (supervisor: Prof. George Efstathiou FRS). He conducted CITA National Fellowship at the University of British Columbia Canada and a research associate at the University of Manchester, and then moved to the University of KwaZulu-Natal South Africa as a senior lecturer and was promoted to an associate professor and to a full professor.  He chairs the NAOC-UKZN Computational Astrophysics Centre and the Chinese-South African Forum of Astronomy. He is also an adjunct professor at Purple Mountain Observatory and National Astronomical Observatory China.

His research focuses on observational and theoretical cosmology aimed at understanding the fundamental laws of the Universe and uncovering the nature of dark energy and dark matter. He is currently a core member of the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) Science Working group, the Planck science team, Hydrogen Epoch Reionization Array (HERA), and the CMB Stage-4 experiment and LSST (Vera C. Rubin Observatory). With the Planck science team, he was awarded the 2018 “Gruber Cosmology Prize” by the IAU. He has published over 100 papers, with total citations exceeding 17000, h-index 42. He was awarded the NSFC Oversea Scholar grant and several South Africa National Research Foundation grants.