Charles L. Bennett is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor and Alumni Centennial Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University with a joint appointment at the Applied Physics Laboratory. His major field of research is experimental cosmology. He has contributed to the establishment of a standard model of cosmology and is currently testing and extending that model.

Professor Bennett led the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) mission. WMAP was selected in 1996 as a NASA Explorer mission, launched in June 2001, and its first scientific results were issued in February 2003. WMAP quantified the age, content, history, and other key properties of the universe with unprecedented accuracy and precision. Previous to WMAP, Professor Bennett was the deputy P.I. of the Differential Microwave Radiometers (DMR) instrument and a member of the Science Team of NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) mission. 

His awards and distinctions include the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, the Shaw Prize in Astronomy, the Gruber Cosmology Prize, the Caterina Tomassoni and Felice Pietro Chisesi Prize, the Comstock Prize in Physics, the Harvey Prize, and the Henry Draper Medal. He twice received the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal, once for COBE and once for WMAP, and NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal for WMAP. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

• COBE
• WMAP
• LAMBDA
• CLASS
• Subaru PFS
• Euclid