Westmont Downtown Lecture Energy and Climate from the Ground Up

Ben Carlson, assistant professor of physics at Westmont, explores the scientific foundations of today’s most pressing energy and climate issues in a Westmont Downtown Lecture on Thursday, Oct. 9, at 5:30 p.m. at the Community Arts Workshop, 631 Garden St., in downtown Santa Barbara. The talk, “Energy and Climate Through the Lens of Basic Science,” is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations required. Free parking is available on the streets surrounding CAW or in nearby city parking lots. For more information, please call (805) 565-6051.

Carlson, who earned a doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, says the lecture expands on a course, Physics for Future Presidents, that focuses on the impact of basic science on the modern world.

“I’ll highlight how the concept of energy density is a lens through which to examine energy — from batteries, to fossil fuels to nuclear power — and explore the challenges and opportunities of transitioning to sustainable energy systems,” he says.

Earlier this year, Carlson and thousands of researchers worldwide were honored with the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, awarded to the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, a particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, as well as several related experiments.

In 2022, he received a $200,000 National Science Foundation grant to further his search for evidence of the presence of mysterious dark matter.

He joined the Westmont faculty in 2021 after teaching at the University of Pittsburgh as a Samuel Langley postdoctoral fellow.

The Westmont Foundation sponsors Westmont Downtown: Conversations About Things That Matter as well as the annual Westmont President’s Breakfast in late February.