Niayesh Afshordi is professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo and associate faculty at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario, Canada. His prizewinning research focuses on competing models for the early universe, dark energy, dark matter, black holes, holography, and gravitational waves. He has contributed to Scientific American and was a consultant to PBS’s NOVA, and his work has been featured in numerous popular media outlets, such as the covers of Scientific American and Science, as well as in The Guardian and The New York Times.