Risa Wechsler is a Humanities and Science Professor and Professor of Physics at Stanford University and Director of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC). She is a leading cosmologist whose work addresses some of the most profound questions about our universe — how it formed, what it is made of, how it is structured, and what its future holds. Dr. Wechsler’s research focuses on understanding the evolution of galaxies, the large-scale structure of the universe, and the nature of dark matter and dark energy, using sophisticated simulations and state-of-the-art observational data to explore these enigmatic forces that shape the cosmos.

Her work has been instrumental in major international collaborations such as the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), which aims to unravel the mysteries of dark energy by mapping the positions of millions of galaxies, and the Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), an ambitious decade-long survey that will reveal the changing night sky in unprecedented detail. Dr. Wechsler's work combines detailed models of the universe with the new 3D maps created by these surveys to understand the hidden forces that govern its expansion and evolution and to understand our place in it.

Dr. Wechsler is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.