Paniez Paykari
Cosmologist

THE MORE WE KNOW, THE MORE WE KNOW WE DON'T KNOW

The recent revolutionary discovery that most of the Universe appears to be made of invisible dark matter and dark energy shows that despite tremendous strides in science there is a huge gap in our ability to understand the Universe. In light of this, can we ever hope to truly know everything about our Universe? Dr. Paniez Paykari, a renowned cosmologist, gives an illuminating talk on this mysterious and fascinating topic and takes us on a journey of the past and future of our awe-inspiring Universe.
Dr Paniez Paykari, born in London in 1982, is a cosmologist who is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) at University College London (UCL). She spent her childhood in Iran & fascinated by the cosmos from a young age, she knew by the age of 10 that she wanted to study astrophysics and never doubted that choice in her life. She received her Diploma in Mathematics in Iran in 1999 and moved to London for higher education. She received her M.Sci. (Master of Science) degree in Astrophysics from University College London (UCL) in 2006. She then moved to the Imperial College London for her Ph.D. degree in Cosmology, which she completed in 2009. Paniez then moved to France in 2010 to start her first postdoctoral position at Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique (CEA). She was a Planck Scientist while at CEA — Planck is a telescope sent into space in 2009 to take pictures of our baby Universe, when it was only 400,000 years old. While there, Paniez contributed to major papers published from Planck data. Since 2014, Paniez has been a researcher at the MSSL department of University College London (UCL) as a Euclid scientist. Euclid is a satellite being built by the European Space Agency (ESA) and is planned to be sent into space in 2020 with a mission to observe the dark Universe and to discover the nature of dark energy. Apart from major technical conferences, Paniez has been invited to give public talks at places such as the Greenwich Observatory and the Iranian Womens’ Association based in London. She has also appeared in the BBC flagship program “The Mystery of Dark Energy.”