Seshadri Nadathur

I am Associate Professor in Cosmology and an Ernest Rutherford Fellow at the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation. My research area is observational cosmology – this means I study the properties of dark energy, dark matter and gravity, using the large-scale structure of the Universe and based on galaxy survey data collected by the leading ground-based and space telescopes.

My research is funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and previously by the European Commission.

I study the large-scale structure of the Universe, analysing the statistical patterns in the clustering of millions of galaxies to uncover cosmological information. I work on redshift-space distortions, baryon acoustic oscillations, gravitational lensing and cross-correlations with the cosmic microwave background anisotropies, and I am particularly interested in the use of new cosmological probes beyond two-point clustering statistics, such as cosmic voids or density-split statistics. 

A large fraction of my work involves the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument survey, or DESI. DESI is a 5-year spectroscopic survey programme to map the positions of 40 million galaxies and quasars in order to determine the dark energy equation of state, the neutrino mass scale, and a host of other science results. I have led the Galaxy and Quasar Clustering working group in DESI since 2022.

Another large part of my work is within the Euclid Consortium. Euclid is a space telescope, launched in 2023, which combines spectroscopic measurements of around 30 million galaxies with weak lensing and photometric surveys of over a billion. I am the PI of a UK Space Agency grant at Portsmouth funding our work on the Euclid Science Ground Segment infrastructure development, and lead a group creating the spectroscopic galaxy catalogues and visibility mask for clustering science. I am also coordinator for a Key Project on measuring baryon acoustic oscillations.

In the past I also worked on the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) and the Dark Energy Survey (DES).