Dr. Will Percival new Co-spokesperson for DESI

By Katie McQuaid 

Associate Director, Communications and Marketing

The Faculty of Science would like to congratulate Will Percival on his election to co-spokesperson for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). DESI measures the effect of dark energy on the expansion of the universe by obtaining optical spectra for tens of millions of galaxies and quasars, constructing a 3D map spanning the nearby universe to 11 billion light years. 

Dr. Percival, Distinguished Research Chair in Astrophysics and the Director of the Waterloo Centre for Astrophysics, has been involved with the DESI project for the last 10 years. Over the next two years, he will take on this leadership role working with the team of scientists within DESI to ensure they get the best results possible out of the project. DESI is a collaboration between 100s of scientists around the world and has the potential to revolutionize the field of cosmology, using data that is 20 times better than we have currently.  

Although the early results from DESI have been exciting so far, Percival says the best is still yet to come. “I believe that the most impactful science from DESI is still ahead of us,” he said. “This is an exciting time to have an enhanced role within DESI and I am looking forward to the impact I can have on the project.” 

Percival will work closely with his co-spokesperson Alexie Leauthaud from the University of California Santa Cruz for their term. Although Leauthaud is a fellow cosmologist, Percival and Leauthaud study different aspects of our vast universe. “I think our areas of expertise are a great complement to one another and our different perspectives will bring strength to our shared role,” Percival said. 

We look forward to hearing a lot more about DESI in the years to come. 

The DESI project is managed by the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. DESI is supported by the DOE Office of Science and by the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science user facility. Additional support for DESI is provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation; the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom; the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; the Heising-Simons Foundation; the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA); the National Council of Humanities, Sciences, and Technologies of Mexico; the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain; and by the DESI member institutions (among them LMU Munich). 

The DESI collaboration is honored to be permitted to conduct scientific research on Iolkam Du’ag (Kitt Peak), a mountain with particular significance to the Tohono O’odham Nation.