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Oliver Müller

College positions:
Visiting Fellow
Subject:
Astronomy
Department/institution:
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Contact details:
om420@cam.ac.uk

Dr Oliver Müller

Dr Oliver Müller is an SNSF Ambizione Fellow at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, and is an expert on the detection and characterization of the faintest galaxies in the Universe – the dwarf galaxies.

Oliver studied Physics at the University of Basel, where he also received his PhD in Astronomy in 2018. He then received a fellowship to independently work as a PostDoc at the University of Strasbourg. He then left academia for a tenure at Google, working as a Data Scientist, before joining EPFL as a young group leader through an SNSF Ambizione grant. His work is based on testing cosmological models with observations of dwarf galaxies, sitting at the intersection between theory and observations. For that purpose, he conducts observations with state-of-the-art telescopes, and challenges cosmological simulations with these observations.

At Clare Hall, Oliver will work on machine learning models to detect faint dwarf galaxies and their disrupted counterparts in large surveys in collaboration with the Institute of Astronomy.

Oliver will be accompanied by Eva Schnider, a Research Engineer specialising in AI in the realm of medical data and health care at Google Research in London. She is excited to experience Clare Halls’ College life as well as Cambridge’s vibrant Lindy Hop dancing scene.

Select publications

  • 2022 · Müller O. „The career insights I’m bringing back to academia after a year at Google“, Nature Nov 2, doi:10.1038/d41586-022-03554-2
  • 2021 · Müller O., Schnider E. „Dwarfs from the Dark (Energy Survey): a machine learning approach to classify dwarf galaxies from multi-band images“, OJAp 4, 3
  • 2021 · Müller O., Pawlowski M., Lelli F., et al. „The coherent motion of Cen A dwarf satellite galaxies remains a challenge for CDM cosmology“, A&A Letters, 645, 5
  • 2018 · Kroupa P., Haghi H., Javanmardi B., Zonoozi A.H., Müller O., Banik I., Wu X., Zhao H., Dabringhausen J., „Does the galaxy NGC1052–DF2 falsify Milgromian dynamics?“, Nature 561, E4-E5
  • 2018 · Müller O., Pawlowski M., Jerjen H., Lelli, F. „A whirling plane of satellite galaxies around Centaurus A challenges cold dark matter cosmology“, Science 359, 534

Select awards

  • Prix Schläfli 2020 – Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT)
  • Amerbach Prize 2019 – University of Basel
  • Edith Alice Müller Award 2019 – Swiss Society for Astrophysics and Astronomy (SGAA/SSAA)
  • KlarText-Preis 2019 – Klaus Tschira Stiftung

Further links

Webpage: https://oliver-mueller.ch/