Bloomberg Distinguished Professorship in Space and Experimental Cosmology

Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences

Established in 2014 by Michael R. Bloomberg

MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG is the founder of Bloomberg LP, Philanthropist, UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change, World Health Organization Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases, and three-term mayor of New York City.

He is an entrepreneur and philanthropist who served as mayor of New York City from 2002-2013 after leading the company he started in 1981 for 20 years. Since leaving City Hall, he has resumed leadership of Bloomberg LP.

Bloomberg was elected mayor less than two months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Under his leadership, the city rebounded faster and stronger than expected on issues ranging from education to health to economic development.

A lifelong philanthropist, Bloomberg founded Bloomberg Philanthropies, which focuses on five main areas: public health, education, the environment, the arts, and government innovation. He also leads a number of bi-partisan coalitions on urgent issues, including climate change, illegal guns, immigration reform, and infrastructure investment.

Bloomberg graduated from Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Business School.

Held by Charles Bennett

CHARLES BENNETT is one of the world’s leaders in the study of the cosmic microwave background radiation that fills the universe. A professor at Johns Hopkins since 2005, he has brought numerous accolades to the Department of Physics and Astronomy in his time here, including being elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2005 and receiving the National Academy of Sciences’ Henry Draper Medal in 2005, the Harvey Prize in 2006, the Comstock Prize in Physics in 2009, and the 2010 Shaw Prize in Astronomy (co-winner). In 2012 he and his Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) team won the Gruber Cosmology Prize.

Bennett focuses on designing and building novel instruments to observe the cosmic microwave background, which is the faint afterglow of energy from the infant universe. His WMAP project provided spectacular results, revealing the universe’s precise shape, age and composition for the first time, as well as the existence of the cosmic neutrino background and the timing of the formation of the generation of stars.