Dan Hooper

Bitter Jester Music Festival Judge

Dan Hooper (sometimes known as Charlie Wayne) is a guitar player who has played with many Chicago bands including the Congregation, the Spectral Distortions, Sawbuck, and the Dirty Howlers. As part of the Congregation, Dan has had the incredible opportunity to open for musicians including Mavis Staples, Wilco, Buddy Guy, the Flaming Lips, and Garbage.

Dan's been enthralled by music ever since he first heard Chuck Berry's “No Particular Place To Go” on the oldies radio station when he was six years old. There was just something about that guitar! Over the years, he would come to play not only blues and rock n' roll, but also soul, alt-country, punk, and metal. Although Dan's main instrument is the guitar, he also enjoys playing piano, organ, and harmonica.

While Dan briefly studied music in college, he didn't much care for the formal structure of his music education and ended up majoring in physics instead. He went on to get his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the University of Wisconsin, learning about things like neutrinos, dark matter, black holes, quantum gravity, and the Big Bang.

Today, when Dr. Dan's not playing music, he's doing his day job as a Research Scientist at Fermilab, America's particle physics and accelerator laboratory where they bring the world together to solve the mysteries of matter, energy, space and time.

Dan is also a Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. He's written several books about physics, and co-hosts the podcast “Why This Universe.” Read more about this unusual combination of science and music here!