Wendy Freedman to Present Alpheus Smith Lecture on the Hubble Tension
The Department of Physics will proudly welcome Wendy Freedman, John and Marion Sullivan University Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago, for the 2026 Alpheus Smith Lecture on November 5.
Her talk, "Are We On the Threshold of a New Understanding of the Universe?: What the Hubble Tension May Be Telling Us," will examine one of modern cosmology's most intriguing puzzles: the disagreement between different measurements of the universe's expansion rate, known as the Hubble tension.
Freedman will discuss how astronomers measure the Hubble constant and share new results from the James Webb Space Telescope that may help resolve this longstanding mystery.
An internationally recognized cosmologist, Freedman has led major efforts to measure the expansion of the universe and is currently using JWST observations to determine the Hubble constant with unprecedented precision. Her many honors include the National Medal of Science and the Gruber Cosmology Prize.