Profile
Cora Uhlemann
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About Me:
I moved from Newcastle to Bielefeld (Germany) and like playing board games. I love bulldogs (although I currently don’t have one), castles and fritz kola.
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My pronouns are:
she/her
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How I use Science in my work:
I use physics to describe the Universe on the largest scales and explain astronomical observations. I model how matter moves and clusters under the influence of gravity – similar to what you learn in school.
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My Work:
I study the skeleton of our Universe along which billions of galaxies are distributed. I work on predicting their motion and distribution.
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Read more
With big telescopes we can observe billions of galaxies across most part of the sky. If we mark each galaxy by a point we can see a weblike pattern that we call the cosmic web. This weblike pattern looks different from how matter is distributed at early times. I am trying to understand how matter clustered over time. The formation of galaxies is a hard problem, but we know that there must be dark matter to help them form. I model dark matter because it’s a lot easier to describe, but we cannot observe it directly. This is why I also describe where galaxies tend to live in the dark matter. Putting both things together, we can compare our theory model with observations to figure out what are the ingredients of our Universe.
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My Typical Day:
I start my day with breakfast (dark bread with hummus, and mint tea). I’m not a morning person, so often I only get to work at 9am. I am a theorist, so my office is my lab! Most of my day is spent talking to colleagues, doing calculations or analysing data, organising projects and teaching students. I go home around 6pm.
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Read more
I teach on two days a week, currently Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity which describes how matter and light behaves in strong gravitational fields. I have regular meetings to help my junior group members do their research and exchange ideas. I work in many international teams of different sizes, so we often use text chat and video conferences to coordinate.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
I’d use the prize money to support an event called “Shots of Science”, in which we bring science to the general public the local pub.
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Work History:
2020-2024: Newcastle University, Lecturer, then Senior Lecturer and Reader in Applied Mathematics
2017-2019: University of Cambridge, Stephen Hawking Institute for Theoretical Physics & Fitzwilliam College, Postdoctoral Researcher
2015-2017: Utrecht University (Netherlands), Postdoctoral Researcher
2012-2015: Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (Germany), PhD student in Cosmology
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Current Job:
Professor for Cosmology
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Employer:
Bielefeld University & Visitor at Newcastle University
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My Interview
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What did you want to be after you left school?
At age 14 I wanted to be a TV host. When I left school I liked physics and psychology
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Not much, but I sneakily tried to do my homework while in class.
If you weren't doing this job, what would you choose instead?
Not sure, my previous plan b) was to go into consulting or project management.
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Nightwish
What's your favourite food?
Haribo, Sweet & salty popcorn
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
Teleportation, Castle ownership, personal doggy daycare
Tell us a joke.
I like to put puns in paper titles: "Fisher for complements" and "Game of cones"
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