A pair of UO faculty members have received one of the most prestigious awards from the National Science Foundation to pursue research projects in their respective fields.

Physicist Tien-Tien Yu and biochemist Scott Hansen were named recipients of the NSF’s Career Awards, which fund research and education activities for five consecutive years. The foundation grants the awards once a year and they are among the most sought-after grants awarded by the agency.

Career Awards support early career researchers who have the potential to drive advances in their fields and to serve as academic role models in their departments and beyond.

Yu’s research project, “Searching for Dark Sectors from Earth to Sky,” focuses on uncovering new knowledge about dark matter, material that makes up about 80 percent of the matter in the universe but remains shrouded in mystery.

Much is still unknown about dark matter because it does not absorb, reflect or emit light, making it hard to detect and observe. But scientists do know that dark matter influences gravity, which has been noted through its effects on astrophysical objects like stars and galaxies. That clue leads scientists to believe that dark matter has mass, but there are many possibilities for what that mass might be.

Yu will tackle that gap in knowledge by searching for and trying to understand a range of dark matter theories. She hopes her research helps stitch together more information about dark matter’s mass and its other properties.

“Research on dark sector physics promotes the progress of science in one of its most fundamental directions:  the discovery and understanding of new physical laws,” Yu said. “This project is envisioned to have significant broader impacts by providing the foundational research for potential transformative discoveries.”

Yu also plans to make her research accessible to a broad audience by incorporating visual media to help explain the complex subject matter. She is collaborating with the UO’s comic studies program to produce engaging comics to integrate into the presentation of her research.

“By integrating visual media, this program provides an unconventional avenue for presenting scientific research while simultaneously providing engaging, informal STEM education to a broad audience, including humanities and design students,” Yu said.

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