Siobhan Roberts

This July, 18 aspiring and early-career science journalists from all over the U.S., as well as Canada, the UK, Germany, Portugal, Nigeria, and the Philippines converged on campus for an intensive workshop led by past IAS Director's Visitors Natalie Wolchover and Siobhan Roberts. 

By Siobhan Roberts, frequent Director's Visitor:

"Lisanne Taams, a student at Radboud University in the Netherlands, is working on a Ph.D. about, in her words, 'computing motives of moduli stacks of vector bundles on stacky curves.'"

By Siobhan Roberts, current Director's Visitor:

"In July, Chandler Davis, an American Canadian mathematician and human rights defender, delivered welcoming remarks at a panel for the 'Azat Miftakhov Days Against the War' in Ukraine from his hospital bed in Toronto, a vase of sunflowers by his side."

By Siobhan Roberts, current Director's Visitor:

"Alyssa Blackburn, a data scientist at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, has spent several years performing digital detective work with her trusty lab assistant, Hail Mary, a shiny black computer with orange trim. She has been collecting and analyzing leaks from the Bitcoin blockchain, the immutable public ledger that has recorded all transactions since the cryptocurrency’s launch in January 2009."

"Dr. [Freeman] Dyson likened studying the cosmos to visiting 'a zoo full of wonderful creatures.'

He added: 'Most of the mathematicians are busy admiring the architecture, while the physicists are admiring the animals. Which is more important isn’t...

"On the evening of March 19, the mathematician Karen Uhlenbeck gathered with revelers at the Institute for Advanced Study for a champagne reception. Some hours earlier she’d been awarded the Abel Prize—the first time a woman had won it—for her...

Everything that humans have seen up until now exists in the 4.9 per cent of the universe that interacts with light. The rest is hidden from view. Most of it, physicists believe—68.3 per cent—is dark energy, an enigmatic force that drives the...