What is the Universe Made Of?

Dr. Robert Scherrer at the University of Memphis

About the Lois McGlothlin Donaldson Endowed Lecture in Physics

On April 6, 2018, Dr. Robert Scherrer delivered "What is the Universe Made Of?" as the 3rd annual Lois McGlothlin Donaldson Endowed Lecture in Physics at University of Memphis Department of Physics and Materials Science.

Biographical Information

Dr. Robert Scherrer is a cosmologist, currently specializing in the physics of dark matter and dark energy.  After earning his A.B. degree in physics at Princeton University and spending two years at Cambridge University on a Marshall Scholarship, Scherrer earned his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago in 1987.  He was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics before joining the faculty at Ohio State University in 1989.  He came to Vanderbilt in 2003 to serve as Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, a position that he occupied for 14 years.  Professor Scherrer is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles as well as several popular science articles and a number of science fiction short stories.  He was a 1999 winner of the Ohio State Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching, and he received the 2010 Klopsteg Memorial Award of the American Association of Physics Teachers for “outstanding communication of the excitement of contemporary physics to the general public.”