EdiRe

gion8

December 4, 2007  BCCP Director George Smoot, Chancelor Birgeneau, Professor Saul Perlmutter, and Dean of Physical Sciences Mark Richards discuss Center goals at press conference (Photo - Bob Stokstad)

ABC News Coverage - view video

Webcast

Photo Gallery

___________________________________________________________________________

• UC Berkeley Press Release
  

• Moore Foundation Press Release
  

• San Francisco Business Journal Article
  

• Cal's cosmic thinkers to get a place to hang out - San Francisco Chronicle
  

• US centre tackles the big questions - physicsworld.com

The Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics (BCCP) will focus on understanding the origin and evolution of the universe through a series of programs to define the observations and experiments needed to answer the key questions in cosmology today. Programs will bring together experiment, computation, and theory. BCCP will also offer a rich program in education and outreach to train future students and engage the public.

"The center has the potential to excite the public and bring in the next generation of observational cosmologists and theorists, said BCCP Director George Smoot. To me, it's a kind of legacy, but one I can participate in. It will be fun coming in to work."
___________________________________________________________________________________

The recently-announced Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation grant will provide the core operating support for the next three years to insure a successful launch of the center and to support its most important assets: the highly qualified postdoctoral students, graduate students, faculty and staff who will build this center of excellence.

Beginning with a with a $500,000 endowment gift from Smoot, other BCCP support includes $1.5 million from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and $5.5 million in private gifts and other support for endowed chairs at the center and for postdoctoral and graduate student support. UC Berkeley physics professor Saul Perlmutter, who, like Smoot, is also a researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), has also contributed to the center, using a portion of his 2007 Gruber Cosmology Prize to seed a fund for future research that, with the addition of other funds, will total approximately $600,000.

First BCCP Postdocs Alexie Leauthaud, Anze Slosar, and Oliver Zahn (Photo - Stokstad)

Press conference attendees (Photo - Stokstad)