Dr. John Kovac

Biography

John Kovac's cosmology research focuses on observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) that reveal signatures of the physics driving the birth of the universe and the creation of structure, as well as the present-day expansion. His research over the past decades has involved the design, deployment, and operation of multiple generations of radio telescopes at the Amundsen-Scott Station in the South Pole. During his graduate studies at the University of Chicago, supervised by Prof. John Carlstrom, Kovac's thesis focused on the detection of CMB polarization using the Degree Angular Scale Interferometer (DASI), for which he was awarded the Grainger Prize Fellowship. Kovac subsequently spent years at the California Institute of Technology as a Millikan Postdoctoral and Killroy Research Fellow, working with Prof. Andrew Lange's group on bolometric polarimeters QUAD and BICEP1, which were also based in the South Pole. BICEP1 was specifically designed to target the B-mode signature indicative of the inflationary origin of the universe, with observations from 2006 to 2008 providing powerful published constraints on the signal by late 2013. The BICEP program transitioned to a series of experiments, co-led by Kovac at Harvard and other institutions. His courses include an advanced astrophysics lab where undergraduates can detect their own evidence of the Big Bang, and he has authored 30 refereed publications related to his research.

Research Interests

Experience

Awards

Courses