Sarah Bridle

Sarah Louise Bridle is a professor in the Extragalactic astronomy and Cosmology research group in the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, part of the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester. She is known for her work applying statistical techniques to the Cosmic microwave background (CMB) and on the use of weak gravitational lensing in cosmology. From 2006 - 2015 she co-led weak lensing efforts with The Dark Energy Survey (DES), was co-lead of the Euclid Weak Lensing working group and was Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) UK Project Scientist from 2013 to 2017.

Bridle was educated at the University of Cambridge where she was awarded a first class Master of Arts degree in Natural Sciences in 1997 and a PhD in 2000 on Bayesian methods in cosmology supervised by Mike Hobson.

Bridle's research investigates the nature of the dark energy which may be the cause of the accelerating universe. She uses weak gravitational lensing to investigate dark energy because it can reveal the distribution of dark matter.

Her research has been funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), the Royal Society and the European Research Council (ERC).

Following her PhD, Bridle was a postdoctoral researcher at the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique of the Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées (OMP) in Toulouse and Selwyn College, Cambridge. In 2004, Bridle was appointed a Lecturer at University College London and was subsequently promoted to Reader in 2008. She was appointed a professor at the University of Manchester in 2013.

Bridle has supervised several PhD students.

In 2003 Bridle was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (URF) for early career scientists which she held until 2012.

In 2008, Bridle received a L'Oréal UK and Ireland Fellowship for Women in Science. A recipient of the Royal Astronomical Society's 2009 Fowler Award, Bridle was nominated one of the "Top 10 UK Scientists under 40" by the Times Eureka Magazine in 2010.