Mohamed Shaaban

Doctoral Candidate University of Toronto

About Me

I am a physics doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto and the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics. Before that, I received my BSc (Hons) in Physics and Mathematics from the University of British Columbia. My primary research interests are observational cosmology and instrumentation.

Short Bio

I am native to Alexandria Egypt. Growing up I moved a lot, I have lived in multiple cities across Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Italy, Canada, and Germany. I have also had the privilege to visit over 130 cities in over 30 countries trying at least one ice-cream store per city. My favourite place on earth is Vancouver, BC but I am now forced to pretend it is Toronto.

Besides my interest in physics and mathematics, I am passionate about the outdoors. I am a very active individual with a love for sports, especially long-distance running and weightlifting. In my free time, I enjoy reading about mysterious things, especially with regard to psychology, history, computing, philosophy, and finance. I am very involved in leadership development, public speaking, and debate. I am also a foodie who enjoys cooking as well as an avid lover of anime, Japanese animated series.

Contact Info

Office: MP1217, 60 St George St.
+1 604 783 9505
m.shaaban[at]mail.utoronto.ca

Teaching & Outreach

I truly believe that teaching and public outreach are the foundation of research in the fundamental sciences—especially if this research is taxpayer-funded. For that reason, I dedicate a great deal of my time to teaching and outreach in an attempt of making cosmology more accessible to the public. I am a member of the Dunlap Institute outreach committee and speakers bureau which means that I can be booked at no cost to provide a public-accessible presentation about one of the topics in my arsenal. In the future, I will be using this page as an outreach hubdds

Weighing the Universe

Not only is the Universe expanding, but it’s also accelerating! This revelation implies either our understanding of gravity is flawed or that a mysterious negative pressure known as Dark Energy is driving the expansion. In this talk I address how these questions can be addressed by weighing the universe and how balloon-borne telescopes can be used to do so. This talk was also presented as part of Cosmos from Your Couch here.