Keynote Speaker & Invited Panelists
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Dr. Eleonora Di Valentino (University of Sheffield)
Dr. Di Valentino is a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Senior Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield and a world-renowned expert in observational cosmology. She earned her PhD at Sapienza University of Rome and subsequently held positions at the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris (IAP) as a Lagrange Fellow, the University of Manchester as a Postdoctoral Researcher, and Durham University’s Institute of Advanced Study as an Addison-Wheeler Fellow.
Dr. Di Valentino has been deeply involved in major experimental collaborations, notably serving as a Core Team member of the Planck satellite mission (within both the LFI and HFI groups) and as a member of the Dark Energy Survey (DES). Crucially, she is the principal author and coordinator of several landmark review papers that define the current status of cosmological anomalies, serving as foundational reference works for the entire field. Alongside her role as Vice-Chair of the CosmoVerse COST Action, her cutting-edge research investigates whether these tensions point to systematic effects or new fundamental physics beyond the standard cosmological model. To this end, she plays a leading role in confronting extended theoretical models with the latest high-precision data from modern cosmological surveys.
- Prof. Marek Biesiada (National Centre for Nuclear Research, NCBJ)
Prof. Biesiada is a leading expert in theoretical and observational cosmology, working in the Astrophysics Division at NCBJ in Warsaw. He earned his PhD at the Jagiellonian University under the supervision of Prof. Michał Heller, and subsequently built an extensive career spanning long-term positions at the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center (CAMK PAN) and the University of Silesia in Katowice. His international research experience includes prestigious stays at Princeton University (at the invitation of Prof. Bohdan Paczyński), the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, and Beijing Normal University. His research has been recognized with the Wojciech Rubinowicz Scientific Prize by the Polish Physical Society.
Prof. Biesiada is currently deeply involved in the preparatory work for major future observatories, serving as an NCBJ representative in the Polish Consortium for the Einstein Telescope. Crucially, his research focuses on testing models of dark energy, dark matter, and fundamental physics. To this end, he utilizes independent astrophysical probes, such as strong gravitational lensing and gravitational waves, to measure the Universe's expansion rate and constrain cosmological parameters.
- Prof. Maciej Bilicki (Center for Theoretical Physics, CFT PAN)
Prof. Bilicki is an associate professor and co-leader of the Computational Cosmology Group at CFT PAN, specializing in observational cosmology. He earned his PhD at the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center (CAMK PAN) in Warsaw and subsequently held research positions at the University of Cape Town, Leiden Observatory, and the National Centre for Nuclear Research in Poland.
Prof. Bilicki is involved in massive international sky surveys and collaborations. He serves as the chair of the Science Policy Board for the ESO 4MOST consortium, co-leads the "Galaxy Catalogs and EM Synergies" subgroup within the LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA gravitational wave collaboration, and is a member of the Polish Consortium for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory (LSST). His research explores the large-scale structure of the universe. To this end, he leverages advanced machine learning techniques and massive multi-wavelength catalogs to estimate photometric redshifts and study large-scale gravitational lensing effects on light and the CMB, providing observational constraints and addressing cosmological anomalies.
- Prof. Marek Demiański (Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw)
Prof. Demiański is a highly distinguished theoretical physicist, relativistic astrophysicist, and cosmologist with a long-standing career at the University of Warsaw. Throughout his extensive academic journey, he served as the Director of the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center (CAMK PAN) from 1992 to 1995, and has held prestigious visiting positions at institutions such as Caltech, the University of Texas at Austin, the Niels Bohr Institute, and Williams College.
Moving seamlessly between pure theory and observational cosmology, he played a key role in global space programs, notably serving as a co-director of two European consortia preparing the ESA Planck satellite mission. While his early foundational research explored the mathematical and physical aspects of general relativity, his long-term focus lies in the physics of the early Universe, large-scale structure formation, the properties of the cosmic microwave background, and the fundamental nature of dark matter and dark energy.