Research Fellow (Gonville & Caius College)
Inflationary Cosmology
Bayesian Statistics and Machine Learning
Biography:
2016 Oct-Present: Junior Research Fellow at Gonville & Caius College
2016 July-Sep: Postdoctoral position at UCL
2012-2016: PhD in Physics (University of Cambridge)
2008-2012: MSci in Experimental and Theoretical Physics (University of Cambridge)
Research Interests
Will Handley is a theoretical cosmologist, studying the very earliest moments of the universe.
His main interest is in "initial conditions for inflation", examining the effect that high energy physics has on the universe a split second after the Big Bang. His current research is focused on examining the theoretical and observational consequences of primordial curvature, searching for imprints in the cosmic microwave background of the shape of the universe at the beginning of time.
In addition to theoretical investigation, he also examines the observational consequences of these new ideas; testing theories against the latest data from microwave telescopes and large scale structure surveys using the University supercomputers.
He also works on developing novel Bayesian algorithms for high-dimensional parameter estimation and model comparison using nested sampling. Possible applications currently under investigation include protein folding, sparse reconstruction for facial recognition and Bayesian neural network training in addition to cosmological parameter estimation and model comparison. His latest theoretical statistical work revolves around quantifying tensions in measurements of cosmological parameters.
He is an active member of REACH, a team of cosmologists designing and operating a radio telescope to make an unambiguous detection of the global 21cm signal coming from the cosmic dawn.
Research Supervision
Postdoctoral researchers: Kamran Javid
PhD Students: Lukas Hergt, Fruzsina Agocs, Will Barker
Masters Students: Deaglan Bartlett, Jamie Bamber, Ian Roque (2018), Ward Haddadin, Jessica Rigley, Panagiotis Mavrogiannis (2017), Fruzsina Agocs, Robert Knighton, Stephen Pickman, Daniel Manela (2016)
Summer Students: Denis Werth, Maxime Jabarian, Liam Lau (2019), Elizabeth Guest, Ward Haddadin, Shu-Fan Chen (2018)
Teaching
- Supervisions: Part IA Mathematics for Natural Sciences (2012-2017)
- Supervisions: Part IA Physics for Natural Sciences (Michaelmas 2015 - Easter 2016)
- Supervisions: Part II General Relativity (2013-2018)
- Demonstrating: Part II Theoretical Physics 1 (Michaelmas 2012)
- Demonstrating: Part II Theoretical Physics 2 (Lent 2013)
- Tripos Examples Classes: Part IA Mathematics for Natural Sciences (Easter 2014 -Present)
Part III Projects
Other Professional Activities
Awards and Prizes
- December 2013: Best Presentation (Cavendish Graduate Students Conference)
- 2011-2012: Best Theoretical final year project (University of Cambridge)
- 2018: Gruber Prize (Awarded to Planck members)
- 2019: Guiseppe and Vanna Cocconi Prize (Shared between WMAP and Planck)
Talks
- Curvature tension: evidence for a closed universe(?), ICG Portsmouth, UK (Aug 2019)
- Quantifying cosmological tensions, UCL, UK (Jul 2019)
- Likelihood-free inference, GAMBIT X, Germany (Jun 2019)
- Compromise-free Bayesian sparse reconstruction, LFI workshop, Flatiron institute, US (Feb 2019)
- Inflation, curvature and kinetic dominance, Future uses of Planck data, ESAC, Spain (Dec 2018)
- BAMBI Resurrection: Blind Accelerated Multimodal Bayesian Inference, DarkMachines, Worldwide (Nov 2018)
- Nested Sampling: an efficient and robust Bayesian inference tool for cosmology and particle physics, DarkMachines, Worldwide (Nov 2018)
- Bayesian Statistics, Third Asterics-Obelics workshop, Cambridge, UK (Oct 2018)
- Planck, inflation and the future of inflationary constraints, Consistency of Cosmological Datasets, Cambridge, UK (May 2018)
- MaxEnt priors with derived parameters in a specified distribution, Cambridge (May 2018)
- Nested Sampling: an efficient and robust Bayesian inference tool for astrophysics and cosmology ICIC, London (May 2018)
- Introduction to statistics, CosmoTools 18, RWTH Aachen, Germany (April 2018)
- Advances in Nested Sampling and astrophysical application, Cambridge, UK (Jan 2018)
- PolyChord 2.0: Fast cosmological inference with Nested Sampling, Cosmo 17 Paris (Aug 2017)
- Modern Bayesian Inference: Theory and Practice, RWTH Aachen (Jun 2017)
- Parameter estimation and Model comparison, IFT Summer School, Madrid (Mar 2017)
- PolyChord 2.0: Advances in Nested Sampling with astrophysical applications, CCA, Flatiron institute, New York (Feb 2017)
- PolyChord 2.0 & the future of nested sampling, University College London, UK. (Sep 2016)
- PolyChord 2.0 & the future of nested sampling, University of Sussex, UK. (May 2016)
- PolyChord & the future of nested sampling, Edinburgh, UK. (Mar 2016)
- PolyChord: next generation nested sampling, Max Planck Institute, Germany. (Dec 2015)
- PolyChord: next generation nested sampling, University of Sussex, UK. (Feb 2015)
- Kinetic dominance in the pre-inflationary universe, Cavendish grad. conference (Dec 2013)
Outreach
- "Cosmology: A scientist's history of the universe" Gonville and Caius (11th February 2019)
- "Observing the Big Bang: A short history of nearly nothing" Perse School (21st September 2018)
- "Periscope: CosmoTools18 Discussion session" RWTH aachen
- "Primordial Cosmology" Gonville and Caius college (2nd May 2017)
- "Introduction to Astronomy: Beyond the Milky Way": Institute of Astronomy Public Talk, University of Cambridge (27th May 2015)
- "To infinity and beyond: Dark Energy": Pint of Science Talk, Cambridge Brewhouse (20th May 2015)
- "The Cosmic Microwave Background: Our probe of the birth of the universe": Institute of Astronomy Public Talk, University of Cambridge (13th January 2015)
- "Dark Energy and Dark Matter: The composition and Fate of the universe": Letchworth Astronomical Society (7:45pm 26th November 2014)
- "Introduction to Astronomy: Beyond the Milky Way": Institute of Astronomy Public Talk, University of Cambridge (28th May 2014)
- "Inflation: Extreme expansion in the earliest universe": Institute of Astronomy Public Talk, University of Cambridge (19th March 2014)
- "The Physics of Juggling": CCPE, Cavendish Laboratory (7 times 10th-14th February 2014, 17th-18th March 2014)
- "The first 3 yocto-pico seconds": Three minute wonder, Cavendish Laboratory (31st January 2014)
- "Special Relativity: An intuitive viewpoint": Hill's Road VIth form college (18th December 2013)
- "Dark matter and dark energy: common misconceptions": Institute of Astronomy Public Talk, University of Cambridge (2nd October 2013)
- "Astrophysics: The universe in 15 minutes": Physics at Work, Cavendish Laboratory (25th September 2013)
- "Introduction to Cosmology": Hill's Road VIth form college (8th July 2013)
- "Introduction to Astronomy: Beyond the Milky Way": Institute of Astronomy Public Talk, University of Cambridge (29th May 2013)
- "Institute of Astronomy Open Day": (23rd March 2013)
- "Cosmology: The search for Dark Matter and Dark Energy": Luton Astronomical Society, (20th March 2013)
- "Frontiers of Physics: Cosmology": Alleyn's School (26th September 2012)
KeywordsBayesian Statistics ; Machine Learning ; Inflation ; Cosmology ; Numerical methods |
Topics
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Collaborators
Key Publications
- Curvature tension: evidence for a closed universe (arXiv:1908.09139)
- PolyChord: next-generation nested sampling (arXiv:1506.00171)
- Bayesian inflationary reconstructions from Planck 2018 data (arXiv:1908.00906)
- Primordial power spectra for curved inflating universes (arXiv:1907.08524)
- Quantifying tensions in cosmological parameters: interpreting the DES evidence ratio (arXiv:1902.04029)
- Novel quantum initial conditions for inflation (arXiv:1607.04148)
- Planck 2018 results. X. Constraints on inflation (arXiv:1807.06211)
