Mario Juric is the principal investigator of the University of Washington’s contribution to the construction of the Rubin Observatory, senior fellow at UW’s eScience Institute, and the director of UW’s Institute for Data-intensive Astrophysics and Cosmology (DiRAC). Once fully operational in 2026, the Rubin Observatory will deliver the largest sky survey in the history of humankind, answering questions from the nature of dark energy to discovering potential “killer” asteroids. Mario led the definition of Rubin data products and oversees the solar-system team.

Mario received his PhD in astrophysical sciences from Princeton University and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study and a Hubble fellow at Harvard University. His research is in the area of data-intensive survey astronomy and AI. He developed a range of astronomical software products and techniques, including software for asteroid detection, mapping the Milky Way, novel astronomical databases, and cloud-based astronomical data analysis systems.

Mario discovered what was at the time the largest known structure in the universe (the Sloan Great Wall; with J. Richard Gott), a dwarf galaxy colliding with the Milky Way (the Virgo Overdensity), and over 100 asteroids – including 22899 Alconrad, the smallest known main-belt binary asteroid; with Korado Korlevic). Jupiter-family comet 183P/Korlevic-Juric is named after him.