Lucas Secco is a graduate student from the University of Pennsylvania and originally from Brazil. He works on several aspects of weak lensing cosmology, including how dark matter interactions affect the shapes of galaxies. He is currently the co-convener of the DES cosmic shear analysis team. In Fall 2020, he will start a postdoctoral position at the University of Chicago/Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics.
We asked Lucas a few questions. Here’s what he had to say:
Do you have any hobbies or take part in sports?
Table tennis and chess, the perfect combination for the mind and the body! I also can’t stop playing the PS4 once I find a good game (like The Last of Us!)
What is your favorite book, movie, and/or TV show?
I gotta pick 3 favorite books as all of them changed me profoundly: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, George Orwell’s 1984 and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.
If you weren’t a scientist, what would your dream job be?
Probably classical musician, but I definitely don’t have the discipline for that!
What do you think has been the most exciting advance in physics / astronomy in the last 10 years?
The first detection of gravitational waves by LIGO and the Event Horizon Telescope images of the black hole in M87. Regardless of how much these discoveries add in terms of new physics, I think it’s really hard to get any cooler than that!
Any advice for aspiring scientists?
It can be a frustrating and uncertain career to follow, but also incredibly rewarding if you think science is worth pursuing and if you have fun solving puzzles in creative ways.