Rate My Professor Patricio Gallardo

Patricio A. Gallardo is a research associate in the Department of Astronomy and Physics in the School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned his PhD in Physics from Cornell University. His research focuses on cosmology, including millimeter wavelength detectors, astronomical instrumentation, far infrared observations, and the cosmic microwave background.

Gallardo has contributed to projects such as the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. As lead author of a study published in Physical Review Letters, he and collaborators used observations from the telescope to track the motion of distant galaxy clusters separated by hundreds of millions of light-years. The research confirmed that the laws of gravity as described by Newton and incorporated into Einstein's theory of general relativity hold on the largest cosmic scales, providing further evidence for the existence of dark matter and challenging alternative theories such as Modified Newtonian Dynamics. Gallardo has noted the enduring validity of the inverse square law of gravity across distances inconceivable in Newton's time and described gravity as one of the most fascinating areas of research.