Angela V. Olinto, Ph.D.

Angela V. Olinto is a professor of astronomy and physics and the provost of Columbia University. She previously taught at the University of Chicago, where she was the Dean of the Division of the Physical Sciences and the Albert A. Michelson Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics and the Enrico Fermi Institute. She also served as chair of the university’s astronomy and astrophysics department from 2003 to 2006 and from 2012 to 2017.

Olinto is known for her work on the structure of neutron stars, primordial inflationary theory, cosmic magnetic fields, dark matter and the origin of the highest energy cosmic rays, gamma-rays, and neutrinos. Formerly a member of the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina, she is the principal investigator of the POEMMA (Probe of Extreme Multi-Messenger Astrophysics) and EUSO-SPB (Extreme Universe Space Observatory on a Super Pressure Balloon) space missions, which are designed to discover the origin of the highest energy cosmic particles, their sources and their interactions.

Olinto is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. She is also a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.