The Buchalter Cosmology Prize was instituted by Dr. Ari Buchalter in 2014. From a young age, Dr. Buchalter was drawn to science. Though not scientists themselves, his working-class grandparents and parents instilled in him a deep awe and admiration for science as the noblest of human pursuits, and in particular for astronomy & astrophysics, which seemed to explore the biggest mysteries of all. This influence, coupled with exposure to the inspiring popular works of Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, and other ambassadors of science from the 1970s and 1980s, set him on the path to pursue astrophysics in his education and his early career.
Dr. Buchalter received a BS in Physics from Stanford University in 1993, a PhD in Astronomy from Columbia University in 1999 for work in theoretical astrophysics, and pursued postdoctoral research at Caltech from 1999 to 2001, where he held the Lee A. DuBridge Prize Postdoctoral Fellowship in Astrophysics. As a graduate student and postdoc, he published over a dozen papers on theoretical astrophysics in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, on topics including large-scale structure formation, galaxy formation and evolution, gravitational lensing, tests of the cosmic expansion, and the cosmic microwave background radiation. In a 2004 in a paper entitled “On the time variation of c, G, and h and the dynamics of the cosmic expansion” Dr. Buchalter put forth a theory which appears to explain a broad range of cosmological observations without the need for either inflation or dark energy, and which became the inspiration for encouraging others to pursue innovative and paradigm-challenging ideas through the creation of The Buchalter Cosmology Prize.
While at Caltech, Dr. Buchalter was intrigued by the application of mathematical methods to the pricing of financial securities and founded and managed a small hedge fund focused on quantitative trading of equity & index derivatives. With a growing interest in the business world, Dr. Buchalter decided to leave academia in 2001 and joined the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, where he became an Associate Principal in the Media Practice. During his time at McKinsey, he found that quantitative methodologies from science could be applied in unique and powerful ways in the business world. This was particularly true in the data-intensive area of marketing, where an explosion of “big data” combined with techniques such as predictive modeling, cluster analysis, and optimization was having a transformative effect, especially in the then-emerging realm of digital media. In 2005, Dr. Buchalter joined Rosetta Marketing, a marketing consulting & services company focused on using advanced analytics and data-driven insights to inform business strategy, improve product development, and optimize marketing programs. As a Senior Partner, he led Rosetta’s Digital Media & Technology practice, working with leading companies in the Telecom, Media, and Technology sectors. From 2008 to 2017, Dr. Buchalter served as Chief Operating Officer and President of MediaMath, a leading global advertising technology company, where he led the development of MediaMath’s media trading and data management platform, proprietary machine-learning algorithms, and core business processes. From 2017 to 2021, Dr. Buchalter was CEO of Intersection, a leading smart cities technology and media company, focused on transforming the urban experience by connecting the digital and physical worlds. He currently serves as CEO of Place Exchange, a technology platform enabling automated execution for digital Out of Home advertising.
Dr. Buchalter serves on the boards of several technology companies, and is a frequent speaker and author on the topics of digital media, marketing strategy, and the application of quantitative techniques to solve business challenges. Seeing the power of innovative thinking and unconventional solutions in the business world, Dr. Buchalter created The Buchalter Cosmology Prize in 2014 to encourage and recognize ideas in cosmology that have the potential to fundamentally advance our thinking.