William Ortola-Leonard

William, originally from Catadau, Valencia (Spain), discovered his passion for physics at the age of 12 while completing a school assignment. Born to Cuban immigrant parents, he moved to Miami with his family at 15, where he graduated from Hialeah Senior High School in 2016. He went on to earn an A.A. in Physics from the Honors College at Miami Dade College in 2018 before transferring to the University of Wisconsin–Madison. 

There, he completed two B.S. degrees, one in Physics and one in Mathematics, in 2020. William is now pursuing a Ph.D at the University of Florida as both a John Templeton Foundation TEX fellow and an NSF GRFP fellow. William is part of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) collaboration, using its data to investigate the universe's accelerated expansion through the 4-point correlation function—a measurement of the excess probability over random of finding four galaxies in a given tetrahedral configuration (triangular-base pyramids, with the four galaxies sitting at the vertices).

Outside his academic work, William enjoys diving into proposed alternative models of cosmic inflation and methods for testing parity violations in the distribution of galaxies. He also enjoys creating YouTube videos for his channel, Fisimania, where he helps physics enthusiasts in both English and Spanish. In his free time, William loves spending quality moments with his family, playing games of dominoes, and exploring new destinations.