Sarah Shandera

Sarah Shandera is a physicist and an associate professor at the Pennsylvania State University. Her research currently focuses on using quantum systems, quantum information, and out-of-equilibrium systems as tools to study open questions in gravity and cosmology. She serves as a member of the Executive Team of the next generation ground-based Cosmic microwave background experiment,CMB S-4 collaboration.

Education
Shandera received her Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Physics at The University of Arizona in 2001 and earned her Ph.D. in Physics at Cornell University in 2006. She was a postdoctoral research assistant at the Institute for Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Physics at Columbia University from 2006 to 2009 and a postdoctoral researcher at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics from 2009 to 2011.

Research and career
Shandera joined The Pennsylvania State University as an Associate Professor of Physics in 2011, and in 2021, she became the Director of the Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos there. Her research is mostly theoretical in the areas of gravitational physics, cosmology, and particle physics. Shandera studies the dynamical laws and matter content of the universe to determine its evolution, focused particularly on the earliest times and highest energies of the universe. Much of her current work focuses on the intersection of quantum systems, quantum information, and out-of-equilibrium systems with gravity and cosmology. She is a member of the Executive Team of the next generation ground-based cosmic microwave background experiment, the CMB-S4 collaboration.

Honors

 * Gordon and Betty Moore FoundationFundamental Physics Innovation Convening Award (2020)
 * C.I. Noll Award for Excellence in Teaching (2019)
 * Visiting Fellow, Perimeter Institute (January 1, 2016 - present)
 * Emmy Noether Visiting Fellow, Perimeter Institute (August 2015 - December 2015)
 * Robinson-Appel Humanitarian Award (2005)