I am a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Chicago and Fermilab, where I hold an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship and a Schramm Fellowship in Experimental Astrophysics. My research in experimental cosmology focuses on understanding the physics of the very early Universe and constraining potential extensions to the $$\Lambda CDM$$ cosmological model.  Much of this work involves developing novel millimeter-wave instruments to measure faint, diffuse backgrounds from early times: the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the integrated emission of high-redshift galaxies (line intensity mapping, or LIM).  Projects that I work on include:

• SPT-SLIM: a LIM pathfinder for the South Pole Telescope (co-PI)
• CMB-S4: the next-generation CMB experiment (lead for Small-Aperture Telescope calibration)
• SuperSpec: a millimeter-wave on-chip spectrometer for surveys of high-redshift galaxies
• BICEP/Keck Array: degree-scale CMB polarization at the South Pole

I am the lead organizer of the 2021 LIM Workshop, hosted by the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics (KICP).

From 2017 to 2020 I was a Grainger and KICP Fellow at the University of Chicago.  In 2017 I completed my Ph.D. in the Harvard CMB Lab advised by John Kovac, and before that I was an undergraduate at Caltech.

email: kkarkare{at}kicp.uchicago.edu