Michael Turner (cosmologist)

Michael S. Turner
Born	July 29, 1949 (1949-07-29) (age 62) Los Angeles
Nationality	American
Fields	Physical cosmology
Institutions	University of Chicago
Alma mater	Stanford University
Known for	coining the term dark energy

Michael S. Turner is a theoretical cosmologist, who coined the term dark energy.^[1] He is the Bruce V. & Diana M. Rauner Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, and was formerly the Assistant Director for Mathematical and Physical Sciences for the US National Science Foundation from 2003-2006. His book The Early Universe, co-written with fellow Chicago cosmologist Rocky Kolb, is a standard text on the subject.^[2]

Turner received a B.S. in Physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1971, and earned a PhD in Physics from Stanford University in 1978.

Turner helped establish the interdisciplinary field that combines together cosmology and elementary particle physics to understand the origin and evolution of the Universe. His research focuses on the earliest moments of creation, and he has made contributions to inflationary cosmology, particle dark matter and structure formation, the theory of big bang nucleosynthesis, and the nature of dark energy.

The National Academy study, Connecting quarks with the cosmos: eleven science questions for the new century, which he chaired, identified opportunities at the intersection of Astronomy and Physics and has help shape science investment in the US in this area.^[3]

Awards

• Helen B. Warner Prize of the American Astronomical Society (1984)
• Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society (1997)
• Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics of the American Astronomical Society and the American Institute of Physics (2010)^[4]

External links

• Research page at University of Chicago Astronomy Department
• Research page at University of Chicago Physics Department
• Video interview Theoretical Cosmology

References

1. ^ Turner, M.S. 1999, The Third Stromlo Symposium: The Galactic Halo, 165, 431
2. ^ Kolb, E.W., & Turner, M.S. 1990, Frontiers in Physics, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1988, 1990
3. ^ Connecting quarks with the cosmos: eleven science questions for the new century / Committee on the Physics of the Universe, Board on Physics and Astronomy, Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences, National Research Council of the National Academies. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2003
4. ^ Grants, Prizes, and Awards, http://aas.org/grants/awards.php#heineman, retrieved 10 February 2010 

Persondata
Name	Turner, Michael
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	29 July 1949
Place of birth	Los Angeles
Date of death
Place of death