Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of California, Irvine
4186 Frederick Reines Hall
Irvine, CA 92617
acooray@uci.edu
Positions
Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy, University of California Irvine, 2007-
Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, University of California Irvine, 2005-2007
Visiting Reseach Associate, California Institute of Technology
Sherman Fairchild Senior Research Fellow in Physics,
California Institute of Technology (2001-2005)
Research Fellow, University of Chicago (2001)
BS in Physics, 1997
BS in Earth, Atmospheric & Planetary Sciences, 1997
BS in Applied Mathematics, 1997
Minor: Anthropology
MS (A joint Astrophysics and Planetary Science concentration), 1997
MS Thesis Title: Stellar Occultation Observations of Saturn's
North-Polar Temperature Structure
UCI Chancellor's Fellow 2007-2010
NSF CAREER Award 2007-2012
UCI Chancellor's Award for Excellence and Distinguished Fostering of Undergraduate Research 2007
UCI School of Physical Sciences' Award for Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education 2007 2000 Sugarman Award For Excellence in Research,
Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago
McCormick Fellowship, U. of Chicago Physical Sciences Division (1997-2000)
Sigma Xi Grant-In-Aid of Research
Sigma Pi Sigma, Physics Honor Society Sigma Xi, Science Honor Society
Fellowships (offered, but declined)
Chandra Fellowship, NASA
Lyman Spiter, Jr. Fellowship, Princeton University
Keck Fellowship, Institute for Advanced Study
Leverhlume Fellowship, Oxford University
Miller Fellowship, Miller Foundation and University of California at Berkeley
Professional Activities
[1] Science Editor, Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. An Institute of Physics (IoP, UK) and SISSA, Italy Journal.
[2] Theory Co-I, Experimental Probe of Inflationary Cosmology (EPIC) Mission (CMBpol mission for the Inflationary Gravitational Wave B-modes); NASA Concept Study under Beyond Einstein missions
[3] Theory/Data Analysis Co-I, Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRiment (CIBER) - A Rocket-borne experiment
to measure fluctuations in the near-IR background and the extragalactic background light; NASA APRA funded
[4] Associate, Herschel SPIRE Instrument Team's Science Consortium (SAG-1); Funded by NASA support for US participants in Herschel GTO programs
[5] Referee for
Physical Review Letters, Physical Reviews (D), Astrophysical Journal,
Astrophysical Journal Letters, Astronomy & Astrophysics, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, International Journal of Modern Physics, Physics Reports, New Astronomy
[6] Grant proposal referee for Israel Science Foundation, National Science Foundation, NASA (Member; Astrophysics Theory Program panel, Origins program panel), UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC), NASA Postdoctoral program
[7] Invited talks at various conferences and meetings, including 2003 International Astronomical Union General Meeting (Sydney, Australia)
Lecturer: (a) Daniel Chalonge School of Astrophysics, WMAP and the Early Universe, Observatoire de Paris, December 2004. (b) Enrico Fermi International School of Physics, Course CLIX: Background Microwave Radiation and Intracluster Cosmology, July 2004, Villa Monastero, Varenna, Italy.
[8] Invited colloquia and seminars: Institute for Advanced Study (2002), Caltech (2002), Fermi Lab (2002), Oxford (2002), UC Davis (2002), UT Austin (2002), Cornell (2003), Columbia (2003), Michigan (2003), U. Penn (2003), U. Pitt (2003), Carnegie Mellon (2003), Penn State (2002), UC San Diego (2002,2003), UC Irvine (2004), U Wisconsin (2004), Purdue (2003), Notre Dame (2003), U. of Rome (INFN Visiting Professor; 2006), U. of Capetown (2005); CITA, U. of Toronto (2006), Taiwan Xinghua National University (2006), Asia-Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics, Pohang Korea (2007)
[9] Invited Review article for Physics Reports (with Ravi Sheth, UPenn) (200+ pages)
[10] Organizer: (a) Fundamental Physics With Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation March 23-25, 2006 at the Beckman Center, National Academies, Irvine, California (b) First Light and Reionization: Theoretical Study and Experimental Detection of First Sources May 18th-21st, 2005 at the Beckman Center, National Academies, Irvine, California (c) 2004 Theoretical Astrophysics in Southern California (TASC) Meeting on October 15th, 2004 at the University of California Irvine Campus. (d) 2003 KBO Workshop: Occultation Searches for Kuiper Belt Objects on September 1st, 2003 at the Monterey, CA (as part of the 2003 DPS meeting).
[10] US Team Member of proposing teams of Cosmic Vision Mission proposals to ESA: DUNE and BPOL
[11] Visiting Astronomer: BIMA, OVRO, VLA, IRTF, CTIO, APO, MDM, KPNO
[12] Full Member American Astronomical Society (General,
Planetary Science division and the High Energy Astrophysics Division)
[13] Fellow Royal Astronomical Society
[14] Full member Sigma Xi
[15] Collaborator, Dark Universe Explorer Telescope (DUET). A proposed MIDEX wide-field X-ray
mission to NASA
Teaching
Spring 05, P53, Numerical methods in Physics
Fall 05, P20D, Space Science
Spring 06, P53 Numerical methods in Physics
Fall 06, P20D, Space Science
Spring 07, P53 Numerical methods in Physics
Spring 07, P150 Order of Magnitude Physics
Freshmen Seminars:
Spring 05: What do we know about the Universe?
Fall 05: 100 Years After: How Einstein Changed the World
Spring 06: Universe From Aristotle to Einstein
Fall 06: Mysteries of the Universe
Winter 07: Pluto Controversy: 8, 9, or 12 Planets?
Spring 07: SETI: Life in the Universe
(Number of freshmen students capped at 15; generally oversubscribed; voluntary teaching)
Research Students
Academic year 2005: 4 undergraduates, 1 graduate student (Daniel Tierney)
Acadermic year 2006: 7 undergraduates, 1 graduate student (Devdeep Sarkar)
Academic year 2007: 4 undergraduates, 2 graduate students (Devdeep Sarkar, Shahab Joudaki)
See group details here.
Grants & Contracts
PI, NSF Astronomy Division CAREER Award (2007-2012; $420K initial award)
NASA Support for US-based Scientists in Herschel-SPIRE Instrument GTO Science Team (2007-2012; FY07: $50K; FY08: $70K; contracted annually by JPL)
Co-PI LANL-IGPP Support for Dark Energy (joint UCI-LANL project; 2006-2008; $136K, direct)
Co-I, NASA Astronomy and Physics Research and Analysis Support for Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRiment, CIBER (2007-2009; $100K)
NASA EPO Support for CIBER and IR Background Measurements (2007-2009: $45K)
PI, Space Telescope Science Institute Archival Analysis - IR Background with NICMOS, 2007 ($45K)
PI, Space Telescope Science Institute Theoretical Research - Reionization and First Galaxies in Numerical Simulations, 2007 ($44K)
PI, Spitzer Science Center Archival Analysis - IR Background with Spitzer IRAC, 2007 ($65K)
Co-I, Spitzer Science Center Legacy Program for IRAC reimaging of the Bootes Field, 2007 ($31K)
PI, (for Graduate Student Education on behalf of the Department of Physics and Astronomy), Department of Education GAANN Program in Cosmology and Biophysics, 2007-2009 ($750K)
US (NASA) PI, Herschel Thousand Degree Survey, funding TBD
Completed
Co-PI, NSF Support for Conference on CMB Radiation, $10K (2006)
Co-PI, UCI Internal Support for First Light and Reionization Conference, $8K (2005)
Co-PI, UCI Internal Support for CMB Conference, $4K (2006)
PI, UCI Faculty Desktop Funding (for Student Computing Lab), $2K (2005)