Ofer’s research interests are cosmological probes and advanced statistical methods. He has been involved in DES since 2004, just after he moved from Cambridge to start a new Cosmology group at UCL. An unexpected lunch with Josh Frieman and John Peoples at a neutrino conference in Paris that year led to UCL and UK involvement in both the instrumentation (the optical corrector) and the science of DES.
He served as co-chair of the DES Science Committee from its early days (2007) to September 2016. Currently he is chairing the newly established DES Advisory Board. Ofer says it has been a unique experience to see the project developing from scratch to a large collaboration of talented people, and to see so many exciting science results, some of them completely unexpected when the project was defined.
We asked Ofer a few more questions — here’s what he had to say:
What motivates / inspires you?
Do you have kids? Do they want to be scientists too?
Any advice for aspiring scientists?