Lyman Page

Lyman Alexander Page, Jr. (born September 24, 1957) is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Physics at Princeton University. He is an expert in observational cosmology and one of the original co-investigators for the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) project that made precise observations of the electromagnetic radiation from the Big Bang, known as cosmic microwave background radiation.

Early life and education Page was born in San Francisco He has a younger brother and sister. He became interested in physics at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, where he did his undergraduate studies, after a course taught by Elroy O. LaCasce. He worked on the Mach’s principle for a course project and was drawn to cosmology. Returning to the United States, he bought and rebuilt a sailboat, and started sailing around the East Coast and the Caribbean for 2.5 years.

Between 2011 and 2017, Page was the chair, or Head, of the Department of Physics of Princeton University. Currently, he is a member of the executive board of the Simons Observatory, an Advisor for Gravity and the Extreme Universe at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and serves on the board of directors of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement.

Research Page's research centers around Cosmic microwave background (CMB), which is the electromagnetic radiation from the Big Bang. In 1991, Page, together with David Todd Wilkinson, Norman Jarosik and Edward J. Wollack, conceived of a satellite designed to specifically detect CMB. and the effort became the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) project, which was named in honor of Wilkinson. The satellite was launched in 2001. Since CMB comes from a time when the universe began, WMAP enables the study of the universe's early history, including its expansion, as well as its composition.

Personal life Page met his wife, Elizabeth Olson, during his PhD years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Olson is a biophysics professor at Columbia University. They have three boys.

Awards Marc Aaronson Memorial Lectureship (2004) Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2004) Member of the National Academy of Sciences (2006) Shaw Prize in Astronomy (2010) Fellow of the American Physical Society (2013) Gruber Prize in Cosmology (2015) Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (2018) (with Charles L. Bennett, Gary Hinshaw, Norman Jarosik, David Spergel and the WMAP Science Team) Marcel Grossman Award, International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics (2018)