Amanda Weltman

Amanda Weltman, born in 1979, is a South African theoretical physicist and South African Research Chair at the University of Cape Town known for her work on dark energy. She co-developed chameleon gravity, a theoretical framework proposing a new force that stays weak in dense regions of space but grows strong in sparse regions, as a possible explanation for dark energy. After earning her doctorate in theoretical physics from Columbia University in 2007 under Brian Greene and completing postdoctoral research at Cambridge University's Centre for Theoretical Cosmology, she took part in the GammeV CHASE experiment at Fermilab, which around 2010 established the first direct experimental constraints on chameleon dark energy theory. She received the Meiring Naude Medal from the Royal Society of South Africa and was named an inaugural Next Einstein Fellow Laureate.