We are thrilled to announce the newest class of TED Fellows, who
give voice to some of the most exciting ideas weve seen in the
programs 10-year history, TED Fellows Director Shoham Arad said in a
statement. This years class includes a police captain designing
systems to support women in policing, a space environmentalist building
technology to monitor space debris, and an artist exploring the ethical
implications of emerging technology. The Fellows program is committed to
using its resources and platform to help scale Fellows ideas and
impact and we are so excited to have these Fellows become an integral
part of our global community.
Bianco, who was born in Italy, is an assistant professor in the
Department of Physics and Astronomy and in the Joseph R. Biden Jr.
School of Public Policy and Administration.
She will deliver her four-minute talk at TED2019 in Vancouver in
April. Before that she will participate in workshops, ongoing
professional coaching and mentoring, public-relations coaching and
activities in the global TED Fellows network. She will have support as
she creates her talk and learn important principles of effective
delivery.
Her work extends in many directions. She is involved in the
development of the largest astrophysical survey ever attempted the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope
(LSST), an 8-meter instrument she said should be operational by 2022.
From its base in Chile, the telescope will image the entire southern
hemisphere sky every three days or so, producing 20 terabytes of data
each night and discovering all sorts of things that change in the sky
exploding stars, merging black holes, planets in transit.
Biancos husband, astrophysicist/urban scientist Gregory Dobler, also
was part of the Data Science Institutes cluster hire. She works with
him, too, collaborating in the unique Urban Observatory
system he developed to survey city skylines and urban environments.
They study urban dynamics, including energy use and pollution, by
applying astronomical techniques to city images.
She also has applied her data analysis expertise to issues of
prosecutorial justice, especially delays, and urban health in New York
City.
Nobody knows about errors in data as well as astrophysicists, she
said with a laugh. By working collaboratively in a team, we can
contribute from different angles.
And that is precisely her interest in the TED Fellows program.
The idea that interdisciplinary work can help us achieve
surprisingly good results and can lead to extremely important
discoveries that is a difficult idea to pitch to any conventional
fellowship or foundation or funding agency," Bianco said. "But TED has
outside-the-box thinkers.
Inside the ring, Bianco nicknamed the Mad Scientist has been a
formidable presence and has an impressive record with 4 wins, 1 loss and
2 knockouts. One boxing announcer, providing play-by-play during a match in Rhode Island, described her as a high-pressure fighter who allowed no pauses, no catching of breath, no lulls in the action.
I dont think Ill see another fighting astrophysicist, he said.
She is most eager to see what will come of the enormous LSST project,
which will expand our knowledge of dark energy and dark matter, the
Solar System, structure of the galaxy and the transient sky all of the
things that are changing in the night, she said.
Every second 10 supernovae explode somewhere in the universe, she
said. The LSST will see thousands and not just exploding stars, but
planets transiting, microlensing, gravity affecting the light of
things.
Thats some of what will happen, anyway.
All of those things are very exciting, but the most exciting thing
is that this is a different survey than any survey that has been done
before, she said.
Who knows what youre going to find out?
The TED website has a complete list of TED Fellows and many of their talks through the years.
Article by Beth Miller; UD photo by Kathy F. Atkinson; boxing photo by Terrence Hamilton
