On April 9th, 2024 the official FWF award ceremony for female ESPRIT and Elise-Richter prize winners took place at the Urania in Vienna.

One of the awardees is Dr. Laila Linke from the Institute for Astro- and Particle Physics. She is one of two female junior researchers from Innsbruck University who successfully applied for an FWF/ESPRIT project based at Innsbruck University in 2023.

As part of her ESPRIT project, Laila Linke is investigating how dark matter distorts the images of distant galaxies due to the gravitational lensing effect. The statistical relationships between these distorted images provide information about the distribution of dark matter, as well as the evolution and expansion of the Universe. Dr. Linke will use data from the Euclid telescope, which was launched last year, and apply new statistical methods.

The Institute for Astro- and Particle Physics congratulates Dr. Laila Linke for this award and wishes her success for her research.