Vid Iršič

About Me

I am an astrophysicist and Senior Lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire. My research explores the synergy between cosmology, galaxy formation, and astro-particle physics. I specialize in using the intergalactic medium and large-scale structure to probe the fundamental nature of our Universe.

Research Interests

My work involves high-resolution numerical simulations and large-scale spectroscopic surveys to investigate:

• The Lyman-α Forest: Using the IGM as a tool for precision cosmology.
• Large Scale Structure: Including recent work on the Lyman-α 3D flux power spectrum.
• Dark Matter Nature: Testing models beyond CDM, such as Warm Dark Matter and Ultra-light Axions.
• Cosmological Simulations: Utilizing the Sherwood-Relics and xFABLE suites.

Career Path

• 2025 – Present: Senior Lecturer, University of Hertfordshire, UK
• 2024 – 2025: IFPU Fellow, Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe / SISSA, Italy
• 2019 – 2024: Kavli Senior Fellow, Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, UK
• 2016 – 2019: Research Associate, University of Washington, Seattle, USA
• 2013 – 2016: Postdoctoral Researcher, ICTP, Trieste, Italy
• 2010 – 2013: PhD in Physics, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia (PhD supervisor: Anže Slosar)

Collaborations

Teaching & Group

Teaching: Data Analysis with AI (UH/MSc, module leader); Computer Vision & Natural Language Processing (UH/BSc, module leader); (past) Data Science projects (UH/MSc, module leader); Research Methods in Data Science (UH/MSc).

Group: Current PhD students (and co-supervisions): Olga Garcia-Gallego (Cambridge), Gabriele Autieri (SISSA), Ke (Mark) Ma (Nottingham). I have previously supervised students at Cambridge and SISSA. Future opportunities for PhD and MSc research will be listed here.