Uros Seljak in 2023

Research Expertise and Interest

astrophysics, cosmology, machine learning, Bayesian statistics

Research Description

Uros Seljak is a professor of physics, of astronomy, and a senior faculty scientist at LBNL. He is a cosmologist who is particularly well-known for his research on cosmic microwave background, galaxy clustering and weak gravitational lensing, and the implications of these observations for the models of the universe, its origins, content, and its future. In 1997, Seljak predicted the existence of B-modes in CMB polarization that are a tracer of primordial gravitational waves from inflation. Much of Seljak's recent work has been focused on how to extract fundamental properties of our universe from cosmological observations using analytical methods, numerical simulations and Machine Learning tools. Seljak is actively developing methods for accelerated Bayesian Inference, and applying them to cosmology, astronomy, and other sciences. Examples of this work are the MicroCanonical Hamiltonian and Langevin Monte Carlo and Deterministic Langevin Monte Carlo. Seljak was inducted to National Academy of Science in 2019 and co-awarded the 2021 Gruber Prize for his work introducing numerous techniques for the study of the large-scale structure of the universe as well as the properties of its first instant of existence. He received an honorary doctorate from University of Ljubljana in 2023.

In the News

Eight Berkeley faculty elected to National Academy of Sciences

In recognition of their outstanding achievements in original research, eight UC Berkeley faculty have been elected members of the National Academy of Sciences, one of the most distinguished scientific organizations in the country. The newly elected researchers include a neuroscientist, two physicists, two cellular biologists, a computer scientist, a chemist and an economist, and bring the total number of living UC Berkeley faculty who are members of the academy to 135.

Black holes ruled out as universe’s missing dark matter

For one brief shining moment after the 2015 detection of gravitational waves from colliding black holes, astronomers held out hope that the universe’s mysterious dark matter might consist of a plenitude of black holes sprinkled throughout the universe.

Featured in the Media

Please note: The views and opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or positions of UC Berkeley.
April 27, 2020

Scientists estimate COVID-19 fatality rate in NYC can be no less than 0.5 pct

Xinhua
A new analysis using COVID-19 death data from Italy projects that the fatality rate in New York City can be no less than 0.5, or one out of every 200 infected people. The researchers, from UC Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, also estimated, based on the predicted fatality rate, that roughly a quarter of New York City's population has been infected, and that about 26 percent of all COVID-19 deaths in New York will be among people who are younger than 65. "Our observation suggests COVID-19 kills the weakest segments of the population," says physics and astronomy professor Uros Seljak, the study's senior author. "Some of my colleagues think that we have been overly conservative, which might be true," he adds. "We have just accounted for the people who have died up until today, but people are still dying." For more on this, see our press release at Berkeley News.
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