ted talk

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I had the fantastic opportunity to share my work with TED as a part of a special TED+National Academy of Sciences event. Here's my talk on why dark matter matters!

We have made a lot of progress in understanding dark matter since this 2020 talk, but we still don't know what it is!

media and interview highlights

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• Decoding the Universe: PBS Nova Cosmos (first aired 2024)
• Remembering Vera Rubin, who made dark matter matter NPR all things considered (December 2016)
• Horizon: The Mystery of Dark Energy, BBC (2016)
• Discussing Dark Matter Kavli Foundation Roundtable November 2017

Below is a discussion of "the future of the universe" with Russ Altman (2025) and what we know and don't know about dark matter with Brian Greene and others at the World Science Festival (2019).

artist collaborations

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I love collaborating with artists and musicians to bring new perspectives and audiences to the wonder of the cosmos. I have recently been collaborating with artist and Stanford professor Camille Utterback on part of her work Fathom. You can see more about this work below in the video on the left and a recent interview about our collaboration in the video on the right. We are currently working on bringing new data from the Rubin Observatory into the piece!

​Other collaborations with artists include:

• Discussion with visiting artists fuse, and Host, artist talk back Dokk by fuse @ Stanford (December 2025)
• Composer and musician Nitin Sawhney composed some fantastic scores to our simulation movies; see our discussion here.
• Black matter, a collaboration with Oxossi Ayofemi at the Contemporary Jewish Museum

explainers and discussions

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​Here I describe what the universe is made of in just 3 minutes! For a longer more detailed version, see Mapping the Cosmos, an hour-long chalk talk and discussion at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (Spring 2017), or Mapping the Dark Cosmos, a public talk at the Aspen Center for Physics (Summer 2018),

​I participated in a wonderful interdisciplinary discussion on "Establishing the Category of the Planetary" hosted by the Bergruen Institute in Venice (November 2024). At minute 38 of the video to the right, I explained our place in the history of the universe, from its initial moments to the creation of Earth, in less than five minutes.

I spoke with Nobel Prize winners Andrea Ghez and Kip Thorne about Science and Creativity in a conversation moderated by Tom Rosenbaum and hosted by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  See also this writeup of our discussion in the Spring 2025 Bulletin.

public lectures 

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Public Lecture at the Royal Institution with Adam Riess, Renee Hlozek, and me (I start talking about "Tracing the Dark Universe with Galaxies" around minute 25), followed by Q&A moderated by Lucie Green (July 2015).

Other public lecture highlights:

• A survey of the night sky California Academy of Sciences, October 2025
• American Academy of Arts & Sciences: Science & Creativity, Los Angeles, March 2025
• Unveiling a Dark Universe: from Tiny Galaxies to Cosmic Maps, Benjamin Dean Lecture, California Academy, February 2022
• Mapping the Dark Universe with Galaxy Surveys, Aspen Center for Physics, August 2018
• Science Sundays Public Lecture, Ohio State University, November 2013
• Frontiers of Astronomy, Cleveland Museum of Natural History November 2013​
• TEDxYouth@Castilleja, 2010
• Understanding Dark Matter, Kavli Frontiers of Science, 2009
• Dark Energy: What the...? SLAC Public Lecture, October 2007 (see especially the earthshaking moment @ min 34.)

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