Jo Dunkley

Education Dunkley was educated at North London Collegiate School She moved to Oxford for postgraduate study where she was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Oxford in 2005 for research supervised by astrophysicist Pedro G. Ferreira. She was a postgraduate student of Magdalen College, Oxford.

Research and career Her research is in cosmology, studying the chronology of the universe using the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, the Simons Observatory, and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). In an interview at Princeton in 2017, Spergel said she quickly "made major contributions to the analysis that led to the development of what we now think of as the standard model of cosmology." which produced a higher-resolution view of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) compared to WMAP.

Dunkley moved to Oxford in 2007 and was promoted to Professor of Astrophysics in 2014. The images of the CMB, released in 2013, showed the universe at only 400,000 years old. Her research combines theoretical physics with statistical analysis and uses her models to understand the universe from cosmological observations. Alongside estimating how much the universe weighs, Dunkley can identify the proportions of dark energy and dark matter. She used gravitational lensing within the CMB as evidence for dark energy within the universe, selected by Physics Today as a highlight of 2011.

Dunkley rejoined Princeton in 2016. Her new research, using the Simons Observatory, looks for "new physics, complexities and extra particles that could have existed when the universe was very young,". In 2017, she was awarded the Breakthrough Prize for Physics with 22 members of the NASA WMAP Science Team.

Public engagement Dunkley has given numerous public lectures and seminars. She has made appearances on BBC Stargazing Live and Dara Ó Briain's Science Club. She is mentioned in Pippa Goldschmidt's I Am Because You Are: An anthology of stories celebrating the centenary of the General Theory of Relativity. Her first book, Our Universe: An Astronomer's Guide was published in 2019. She will deliver a series of workshops and talks for students to raise awareness of women's contributions to astronomy as part of a book tour. 2020 – New Horizons in Physics Prize 2019 – Appointed Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to Science 2017 – Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics shared with 22 members of the NASA WMAP Science Team. 2016 – Rosalind Franklin Award and Lecture 2015 – Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award 2015 – Awarded Philip Leverhulme Prize by the Leverhulme Trust 2014 – Awarded the Fowler Prize by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) 2013 – Maxwell Medal and Prize 2010 – Starting grant from the European Research Council (ERC) 2007 – NASA Group Achievement Award, shared with the WMAP team

Personal life Dunkley has two children with her partner, the historian Faramerz Dabhoiwala.