Wang, Yun 1964-

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WANG, Yun 1964-

PERSONAL:

Female. Born 1964, in China; immigrated to United States, 1985. Ethnicity: "Chinese." Education: Tsinghua University, China, B.S., 1985; Carnegie Mellon University, M.S., 1987, Ph.D., 1991. Politics:

Democrat. Religion: "Leaning toward Buddhism." Hobbies and other interests: Music.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Oklahoma, 440 West Brooks St., Norman, OK 73019; fax: 405-325-7557. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Theoretical cosmologist and poet. Postdoctoral positions at University of Florida, NASA/FERMILAB Astrophysics Center, and Princeton University; University of Notre Dame, visiting professor; University of Oklahoma, Norman, assistant professor of theoretical cosmology.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize, 2002, for The Book of Jade; National Science Foundation Career Award.

WRITINGS:

The Carp, Bull Thistle Press (Jamaica, VT), 1997.

The Book of Jade, Story Line Press (Ashland, OR), 2002.

Contributor of scientific articles to journals and of poetry to literary journals and anthologies.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

Poetry book manuscript, Journey to the Galactic River.

SIDELIGHTS:

Yun Wang is a theoretical cosmologist who came to the United States to pursue a graduate degree and who remained to teach and conduct her research. Wang notes on her Web site that her interests "concern cosmology, astrophysics, and the interface between particle physics and cosmology. I have a broad scientific interest and have worked on many other subjects. Now my research is focused on using various independent cosmological data sets to gain as deep an understanding as possible of our universe (in particular, probing the physics of inflation and the dark energy in the universe) and pushing for new observations which will significantly add to our power to understand the universe. In the next several years, a primary focus of the field of cosmology will be the accurate determination of cosmological parameters."

Wang pursues her research within the context of projects that address the cosmic microwave background anisotropy and large scale structure as probes of cosmology, type Ia supernovae as a probe of cosmology, and gravitational lensing as a probe of cosmology. Wang presents detailed descriptions of these projects on her page.

In addition to exploring the universe, Wang explores the heart of man in her award-winning poetry, which has been published in various literary journals. Wang has read her poetry with music in performance spaces and galleries in Pennsylvania and California. Wang has been an invited speaker in poetry at Kenyon College and Oklahoma State University.

The poems of her first volume, a chapbook titled The Carp, call up horrifying images of cruelty, rape, murder, and starvation in her homeland of China. Wang references her father's insistence on telling the truth, with painful consequences. A Bloomsbury Review contributor wrote that "the reader is reminded that there are worse things than a painful death; there is the loss of the living soul."

The Book of Jade, which was the winner in a field of more than 900 entries of the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize, also contains poems of Chinese repression, both historical and autobiographical. They contain images of the brutal Cultural Revolution, as well as references to delicate flowers, fish, fragrances, and the wonders of science. The Book of Jade was a finalist for the 2003 Oklahoma Book Award, which cited that "Yun Wang employs the heart of a poet and the mind of a scientist to plot the hidden meanings in experiences both personal and universal, horrifying and beautiful." Booklist's Patricia Monaghan noted Wang's unique form, "something between a psalm and a prose poem" and called the volume "an unforgettable book."