This Presidential Young Investigator award will support the development of new instrumentation and observations dedicated to the study of the intrinsic properties of quasars and the distribution of matter along the line of sight to these extremely distant objects. The Lyman-alpha "forest" of absorption lines seen in the spectra of high redshift quasars is generally ascribed to intervening pre-galactic or proto-galactic material with the elemental composition of material fresh from the big bang. By developing new, more powerful and sensitive spectrometers and using them to study this material and the quasars beyond them, this outstanding young scientist will probe the physical processes occurring in the very early universe.
