J. Luna Zagorac

/jɒvənə ˈluːnə zɑgorəts/ | يوفانا لونا زاغوراتس | Јована Луна Загорац

I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics primarily working on particle cosmology. I'm intrigued by gravitating wave-like phenomena in the Universe, from wave dark matter and boson stars to the inflaton condensate and gravitational waves. I also love to work in radically interdisciplinary ways, from marrying quantum-inspired techniques and numerical simulations of axion-like dark matter to developing a Python package to map ancient Egyptian star data from hieroglyphs to virtual skies. Before moving to Canada, I got my Ph.D. in physics from Yale University where I wrote my dissertation on HPC simulations and signatures of ultralight (or fuzzy) dark matter as a Future Investigator in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST). I was also a Fellow of the Franke Program in Science and the Humanities at Yale, which supported my work on mapping ancient Egyptian star writings to observational astronomical data, a project I have taken with me to my postdoc.

Apart from research I enjoy science communications, particularly through writing for Astrobites and outreach. I also love teaching, and have dabbled in curriculum development for the Intro Physics Bootcamp for incoming graduate students at Yale. I thrive at the intersection of the sciences and the humanities, and like learning languages: ancient, modern, and computer. When not doing any of the above, I buy too many books (and even read some of them!), drink dangerous amounts of caffeine, play video games that make me nostalgic for the mid-00's, and roller skate.