Eduardo Rozo, University of Arizona assistant professor of physics, was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to receive funding through its prestigious Early Career Research Program. The program promotes scientific advancement by supporting exceptional researchers early in their careers. Rozo was the second researcher in Arizona to receive the award, and the first for the UA. Rozo's research project, "Constraining Dark Energy With Galaxy Clusters and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations," seeks to explain why — despite the force of gravity pulling inward — the expansion of the universe is not slowing down. Instead, it's speeding up. According to Rozo, a mysterious substance called "dark energy" is pushing the universe to expand. Using data from the Dark Energy Survey, Rozo will study the echo of the Big Bang in the distribution of galaxies in the universe, and how clusters of galaxies form across cosmic times. By combining the two measurements, he hopes to shine a light on dark energy and its physical properties.