The Nature of Scientific Proof in the Age of Simulations
Is numerical mimicry a third way of establishing truth? 
Kevin Heng received his M.S. and Ph.D. in astrophysics from the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) and the University of Colorado at Boulder. He joined the Institute 
for Advanced Study in Princeton from 2007 to 2010, first as a Member and later as the Frank & Peggy Taplin Member. From 2010 to 2012 he was a Zwicky Prize Fellow at ETH Z¨urich 
(the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology). In 2013, he joined the Center for Space and Habitability (CSH) at the University of Bern, Switzerland, as a tenure-track assistant professor, 
where he leads the Exoplanets and Exoclimes Group. He has worked on, and maintains, a broad range of interests in astrophysics: shocks, extrasolar asteroid belts, planet formation, 
fluid dynamics, brown dwarfs and exoplanets. He coordinates the Exoclimes Simulation Platform (ESP), an open-source set of theoretical tools designed for studying the basic physics and 
chemistry of exoplanetary atmospheres and climates (www.exoclime.org). He is involved in the CHEOPS (Characterizing Exoplanet Satellite) space telescope, a mission approved by the 
European Space Agency (ESA) and led by Switzerland. He spends a fair amount of time humbly learning the lessons gleaned from studying the Earth and Solar System planets, as related 
to him by atmospheric, climate and planetary scientists. He received a Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid of Research in 2006