Sebastian Wagner-Carena, Ph.D.

Sebastian Wagner-Carena joined the Simons Foundation’s Flatiron Institute as a Flatiron Research Fellow in September, 2023. He recently received his Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University, where he worked under the supervision of Risa Wechsler. His current research focuses on using strong gravitational lenses to examine the physics of dark matter. Given that dark matter doesn’t emit an electromagnetic signal that we have been able to detect, Sebastian’s work has a particular emphasis on measuring the gravitational effects of dark matter structures on the light emitted by distant galaxies. In his work, he leverages a variety of computational tools ranging from physical simulations to machine-learning-based inference techniques. Sebastian earned a B.S. in physics and mathematics with a minor in computer science from Harvard University where he worked on developing new methods of separating the signal of the Cosmic Microwave Background, our universe’s first light, from radiation emitted by our own galaxy.