Dr. Alexander “Sasha” Kashlinsky, is a Senior Staff Scientist with Science Systems and Applications, Inc. (SSAI) based at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. He began studies in Physics at Latvian State University, Riga, USSR/Latvia from 1973 to 1976, then moved to Israel, where he completed undergraduate studies in Physics at Tel Aviv University in 1977 and went on to earn his M.Sc. in Physics in 1979 at the same institution. He got his Ph.D. in Astrophysics at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, England in 1983 with the thesis “The formation of bounds systems in the Universe,” under the supervision of Lord Martin Rees.

Sasha has had a very illustrious career since he came to Goddard in 1991 and has made important contributions to cosmic infrared and cosmic microwave background radiation, galaxy formation, large-scale structure of the universe and dark matter among many others topics. He recently published results of a new study, where he suggested that, what LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) might have detected was a merger of primordial black holes making up the Dark Matter.

He is the principal investigator on several NASA and NSF grants to study topics related to large-scale flows and cosmic microwave background radiation, and to cosmic infrared background and early stellar and black hole populations. He leads a competitively selected NASA project known as LIBRAE (Looking at Infrared Background Radiation Anisotropies with Euclid), which is designated to run through 2030+ with the Dark Energy European Space Agency mission Euclid.