Christian Reichardt

Professor Christian Reichardt is a cosmologist and astrophysicist in the School of Physics, Faculty of Science, at the University of Melbourne, where he serves as Chair of the Research and Research Training Committee. He earned a PhD in Physics from the California Institute of Technology in 2008 and a Bachelor's Degree with Honours from the same institution. Following his PhD, Reichardt conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley, contributing to studies on galaxy formation and cosmic microwave background observations. His career at the University of Melbourne has advanced through positions including Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer to his current professorship.

Reichardt's research utilizes observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the relic radiation from the Big Bang, from ground-based telescopes at extreme sites such as the South Pole and the Atacama Desert. He contributes to major international collaborations including the South Pole Telescope (SPT), SPT-3G, POLARBEAR, and the Simons Observatory. His investigations cover CMB temperature and polarization power spectra, gravitational lensing cross-correlations, the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect for galaxy cluster cosmology, and searches for primordial gravitational waves indicative of cosmic inflation. These measurements constrain fundamental cosmological parameters like dark energy evolution, neutrino masses, and extensions beyond the standard cosmological model. Key publications include 'The Simons Observatory: science goals and forecasts' (2019), 'CMB-S4 science book' (2016), 'Galaxy clusters discovered via the Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effect in the 2500-square-degree SPT-SZ survey' (2015), 'A measurement of the damping tail of the cosmic microwave background power spectrum with the South Pole Telescope' (2011), 'SPT-3G: a next-generation cosmic microwave background polarization experiment on the South Pole telescope' (2014), and 'High-resolution CMB power spectrum from the complete ACBAR data set' (2009). Reichardt received an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT150100074, 2015, $731,020) and leads ARC Discovery Project DP210102386 (2021, $569,607). He participates in public outreach through University of Melbourne Pursuit articles on topics like evolving dark energy and supervises PhD students and postdocs in cosmology.

Professional Email: christian.reichardt@unimelb.edu.au