Kerstin Perez (CC’05) first came to Columbia from Philadelphia, to study physics as an undergraduate. After finishing her doctorate at the California Institute of Technology, Perez was awarded a National Science Foundation Astronomy and Astrophysics Fellowship at Columbia. And now, after stints at Haverford College and MIT, Perez returned to Columbia this summer as the Lavine Family Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences in the department of physics. Perez is an astroparticle physicist. She builds instruments that look out to space and try to measure what the universe is made up of at its tiniest, subatomic scales. She focuses in particular on identifying the particle nature of dark matter.
Columbia News caught up with Perez to discuss dark matter, her next Antarctic research project, and how science needs to change in the wake of the pandemic.
Written by Christopher D. Shea. Read the full article at Columbia News.
