Katie Mack (astrophysicist)

Katie Mack
Katie Mack giving her talk on the End of the Universe at CERN on 25 February 2019
Born	Katherine J. Mack
Residence	Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S.
Fields	Cosmology Theoretical astrophysics
Institutions	North Carolina State University University of Cambridge
Alma mater	Princeton University (PhD) California Institute of Technology (BS)
Thesis	Tests of early universe physics from observational astronomy (2009)
Doctoral advisor	Paul Steinhardt
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Katherine J. Mack is a theoretical cosmologist and Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University. Her research investigates dark matter, vacuum decay and the epoch of reionisation. Mack is a popular science communicator, participating in social media and regularly writing for Scientific American, Slate, Sky & Telescope, Time and Cosmos.

Early life and education

External video
A Tour of the Universe: Women in Physics Lecture
Shells of Cosmic Time

Mack became interested in science as a child and built solar-powered cars out of Lego. Her mother is a fan of science fiction, and encouraged Mack to watch Star Trek and Star Wars. Her grandfather was a student at CalTECH and worked on the Apollo 11 mission. She became more interested in spacetime and the big bang after attending talks by scientists such as Stephen Hawking. She received her undergraduate degree in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 2003. Mack obtained her PhD in astrophysics from Princeton University in 2009. Her thesis on the early universe was supervised by Paul Steinhardt.

Research and career

After earning her doctorate, Mack joined the University of Cambridge as a Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) postdoctoral research fellow at the Kalvi Institute for Cosmology. Later in 2012, Mack was a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Mack was involved with the construction of the dark matter detector SABRE.

In January 2018, Mack became an Assistant Professor and a member of university's Leadership in Public Science Cluster in the Department of Physics at North Carolina State University.

Mack works at the intersection between fundamental physics and astrophysics. Her research considers dark matter, vacuum decay, the formation of galaxies, observable tracers of cosmic evolution and the Epoch of Reionisation. Mack has described dark matter as one of science's "most pressing enigmas". She has worked on dark matter self-annihilation Mack has investigated whether the accretion of dark matter could result in the growth of primordial black holes (PBHs). She has worked on the impact of PBHs on the cosmic microwave background. She has become increasingly interested in the end of the universe.

Public engagement and advocacy

Mack maintains a strong science outreach presence on both social and traditional media. Mack's Twitter account is one of the most-followed accounts of professional scientists worldwide. She was described by Motherboard and Creative Cultivate as a "social media celebrity". Mack is a popular science writer, and has contributed to The Guardian, Scientific American, Slate, The Conversation, Sky & Telescope, Gizmodo, Time and Cosmos, as well as providing expert information to the BBC. Mack's twitter account has over 300,000 followers. Her "smackdown" of a climate change denier on Twitter achieved mainstream coverage, as did her "Chirp for LIGO" upon the first detection of gravitational waves.

She was the 2017 Australian Institute of Physics Women in Physics lecturer, in which capacity she spent three weeks delivering talks at schools and universities across Australia.

In 2018, Mack was chosen to be one of the judges for Nature magazine's newly founded Nature Research Awards for Inspiring Science and Innovating Science. In February 2019 Mack appeared in an episode of The Jodcast, talking about her work and science communication. Mack was a member of the jury for the Alfred P. Sloan Prize in the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. In 2019, she was referenced on the Hozier track 'No Plan' from his album Wasteland, Baby!:

"As Mack explained, there will be darkness again."

She is a member of the Sloan Science & Film community, where she works on science fiction. Her first book, The End of Everything, is being published by Simon & Schuster in 2020. It considers the different ways the universe could end. Simon & Schuster won the rights to Mack's first book after an eight-way bidding battle.

Controversy

Promoted online censorship of a man's attire while the European Space Agency was broadcasting it's successful landing Philae on a comet. Matt Taylor is a professional scientist that was singled out by Katie Mack for wearing a shirt Mack found unacceptable to herself. Taylor was forced to apologize.

Personal life

Mack is interested in the intersection of art, poetry and science. She is bisexual.

External links

• Official website
• Katie Mack on Twitter
• Katie Mack at NC State University