Sarah Bridle

Sarah Bridle
Born	Sarah Louise Bridle
Nationality	British
Fields	Astrophysics Dark energy Weak gravitational lensing
Institutions	University of Manchester University College London (UCL) Cavendish Laboratory Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées University of Cambridge
Alma mater	University of Cambridge (BA, MSci, PhD)
Thesis	Bayesian methods in cosmology (2001)
Doctoral advisor	Mike Hobson
Doctoral students	Alexandra Abate Kathinka Evans Emily Hall Tomasz Kacprzak Donnacha Kirk Niall MacCrann Simon Samuroff Fergus Simpson
Notable awards	Fowler Award from the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) (2009)
Website www.sarahbridle.net

Sarah Louise Bridle is a Professor in the Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology research group in the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, part of the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester. She is known for her work applying statistical techniques to the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and on the use of weak gravitational lensing in cosmology. She co-leads weak lensing efforts with The Dark Energy Survey (DES), was co-lead of the Euclid Weak Lensing working group and is a project scientist on the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST).

Education

Bridle was educated at the University of Cambridge where she was awarded a first class Master of Arts degree in Natural Sciences in 1997 and a PhD In 2000 on Bayesian methods in cosmology.

Research

Bridle's research investigates the nature of the dark energy which may be the cause of the accelerating universe. She uses weak gravitational lensing to investigate dark energy because it can can reveal the distribution of dark matter.

Her research has been funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), the Royal Society and the European Research Council (ERC).

Career

Following her PhD, Bridle was a postdoctoral researcher at the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique of the Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées (OMP) in Toulouse and Selwyn College, Cambridge. In 2003 she was awarded a highly prestigious Royal Society University Research Fellowship. In 2004, Bridle was appointed a Lecturer at University College London and was subsequently promoted to Reader in 2008. She was appointed as Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Manchester in 2013.

Awards and honours

In 2008, Bridle received a L'Oréal UK and Ireland Fellowship for Women in Science. A recipient of the Royal Astronomical Society's 2009 Fowler Award, Bridle was nominated one of the "Top 10 UK Scientists under 40" by the Times Eureka Magazine in 2010.