Csaba Balazs is a theoretical particle physicist who infers fundamental principles of Nature from experiment. In a quest to complete Einstein's dream, he tackles some of the deepest mysteries of physics: How did the Universe begin, what is it made of, how do its constituents interact, and how does it evolve? Csaba Balazs studies the cosmic connections between the smallest (the elementary particles) and the largest (the Universe), which encode the answers to some of these basic questions. Since the fundamental forces governing the subatomic world also shape the structure of our Universe, part of the answer is written in the stars.

The fundamental principles of physics are also being probed at the CERN Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, the highest energy experiment ever built. The LHC is testing our understanding of what the elementary particles really are and how certain properties of these particles, such as their mass, arise. The work of Csaba Balazs enables physicists to interpret the LHC results and assists extracting the fundamental principles of Nature. His work also incorporates astrophysical observations that complement the information from the LHC, shedding light on the elusive dark matter, dark energy and, perhaps, dark forces.