Tracy Slatyer

Tracy Slatyer is a theoretical physicist who works on particle physics, cosmology and astrophysics. Her research is motivated by questions of fundamental particle physics – in particular, the nature and interactions of dark matter – but she seeks answers to these questions by studying possible signatures of new physics in astrophysical and cosmological data. She has explored new theoretical scenarios for dark matter, developed new methods for predicting dark matter signals and distinguishing them from backgrounds, and co-discovered the giant gamma-ray structures known as the “Fermi Bubbles” erupting from the center of the Milky Way.

She was born in the Solomon Islands and grew up in Australia and Fiji, completing her undergraduate work with honors in theoretical physics at the Australian National University in 2005, and her doctoral work in physics at Harvard in 2010 under the direction of Prof. Douglas Finkbeiner. She was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton from 2010-2013, and joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Physics Department as faculty in July 2013. Slatyer was recently named a 2022 Simons Investigator and has won awards including a New Horizons in Physics Prize from the Breakthrough Foundation, a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the Henry Primakoff Award for Early-Career Particle Physics of the American Physical Society, and the Bruno Rossi Prize of the American Astronomical Society.