Prof. Dai received a B.S. in Physics from Peking University in 2011. Later on, he earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the Johns Hopkins University in 2015 working on theoretical cosmology. From 2015 to 2018, he was awarded an NASA Einstein fellowship and was appointed a postdoctoral Member at the Institute for Advanced Study in the School of Natural Sciences. From 2018 to 2020, he was a long-term John Bahcall postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, before he joined the faculty in the Department of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley.
Research Interests
Prof. Dai is interested in cosmology and astrophysics. Combining both theoretical and observational efforts, he investigates high magnification macro-lensing and micro-lensing phenomena in extragalactic lensed galaxies, to understand the nature of the Dark Matter on scales smaller than those of galaxy formation, and to probe star formation in the young Universe. With an emphasis on signal detection and analysis, Prof. Dai studies the gravitational lensing phenomenon of gravitational waves from merging compact objects, as a non-electromagnetic view of the matter distribution in the Universe. Prof. Dai explores novel methodologies to search for imprints of New Physics in the Cosmic Microwave Background, which can inform us about the physics of the primordial Universe.