<html><body><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: #000000"><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: #000000;" data-mce-style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: #000000;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;" data-mce-style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;" data-mce-style="font-family: georgia, serif;">Dear Colleagues and Friends, <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;" data-mce-style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;" data-mce-style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;" data-mce-style="font-family: georgia, serif;">Please join me in congratulating Matias Zaldarriaga, who was named a recipient of the 2021 Gruber Cosmology Prize, which honors contributions that have been essential to the development of this field of research over the last twenty-five years.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;" data-mce-style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;" data-mce-style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;" data-mce-style="font-family: georgia, serif;">Matias shares the honor with Marc Kamionkowski—a past Member in the School (1991–95) currently at Johns Hopkins University—and Uroš Seljak of University of California at Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;" data-mce-style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;" data-mce-style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;" data-mce-style="font-family: georgia, serif;">Along with Kamionkowski and Seljak, Matias has helped revolutionize the way in which researchers are able to analyze the cosmic background radiation, unlocking many deep mysteries of the universe. The concepts outlined in two independent but simultaneous papers (<a href="https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.55.7368" style="color: #954f72; text-decoration: underline;" data-mce-href="https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.55.7368" data-mce-style="color: #954f72; text-decoration: underline;">Kamionkowski, 1997</a>) and (<a href="https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.78.2054" style="color: #954f72; text-decoration: underline;" data-mce-href="https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.78.2054" data-mce-style="color: #954f72; text-decoration: underline;">Seljak and Zaldarriaga, 1997</a>), provide a mathematical means to infer the history of the Universe all the way back to the first fraction of a fraction of a second of the universe’s existence.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;" data-mce-style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;" data-mce-style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;" data-mce-style="font-family: georgia, serif;">Matias first came to the Institute as a Member (1998–2001 and 2001–02) and was appointed to the Faculty in 2009.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="color: black;" data-mce-style="color: black;">His work has touched nearly every major area of cosmology research, including the early expansion of the universe, its age and composition, and primordial gravitational waves.</span></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;" data-mce-style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;" data-mce-style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;" data-mce-style="font-family: georgia, serif;">Once again, it is my pleasure to recognize Matias and his colleagues for their incredible contributions to this field.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;" data-mce-style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;" data-mce-style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;" data-mce-style="font-family: georgia, serif;">You may read more about the award and Matias’s work<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.ias.edu/news/2021/matias-zaldarriaga-receives-gruber-cosmology-prize" style="color: #954f72; text-decoration: underline;" data-mce-href="https://www.ias.edu/news/2021/matias-zaldarriaga-receives-gruber-cosmology-prize" data-mce-style="color: #954f72; text-decoration: underline;">here</a>.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;" data-mce-style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;" data-mce-style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;" data-mce-style="font-family: georgia, serif;">Best,</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;" data-mce-style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;" data-mce-style="margin: 0px; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;" data-mce-style="font-family: georgia, serif;">Robbert</span><o:p></o:p></p><br><br><div data-marker="__SIG_PRE__"><div><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px;" data-mce-style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px;">Robbert Dijkgraaf</span><br style="font-family: 'times new roman' , serif; font-size: 15px;" data-mce-style="font-family: 'times new roman' , serif; font-size: 15px;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;" data-mce-style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><i style="font-size: 15px;" data-mce-style="font-size: 15px;">Director and Leon Levy Professor</i></span><br style="font-family: 'times new roman' , serif; font-size: 15px;" data-mce-style="font-family: 'times new roman' , serif; font-size: 15px;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px;" data-mce-style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px;">Institute for Advanced Study</span><br style="font-family: 'times new roman' , serif; font-size: 15px;" data-mce-style="font-family: 'times new roman' , serif; font-size: 15px;"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px;" data-mce-style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px;">Princeton, New Jersey 08540</span><br></div></div></div></div></body></html>