Eva Silverstein (born October 24, 1970) is an American
theoretical physicist
Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experime ...
,
cosmologist
Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosopher ...
, and
string theorist
In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and intera ...
. She is a professor of physics at
Stanford University and director of the Modern Inflationary Cosmology collaboration within the
Simons Foundation
The Simons Foundation is a private foundation established in 1994 by Marilyn and Jim Simons with offices in New York City. As one of the largest charitable organizations in the US with assets of over $5 billion in 2022, the foundation's mission ...
Origins of the Universe initiative.
Life, education, and work
Raised in
Spokane, Washington
Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Cana ...
, Silverstein is the daughter of Harry S. and Lorinda Knight Silverstein and graduated from
Lewis and Clark High School
Lewis and Clark High School is a four-year public secondary school in Spokane, Washington, United States. Opened in 1912, it is located at 521 W. Fourth Ave. in the Cliff/Cannon neighborhood of downtown Spokane, bounded by I-90 to the north and ...
.
Her father is a professor emeritus of philosophy at
Washington State University
Washington State University (Washington State, WSU, or informally Wazzu) is a public land-grant research university with its flagship, and oldest, campus in Pullman, Washington. Founded in 1890, WSU is also one of the oldest land-grant uni ...
in
Pullman.
Silverstein earned her bachelor's degree in physics from Harvard University in 1992 and her doctoral degree from Princeton University four years later.
Silverstein's primary research areas include
cosmic inflation, namely the creation of predictive and testable new mechanisms which have enabled systematic understanding of the process and the role of ultraviolet-sensitive qualities in observational cosmology (including string-theoretic versions of large field inflation and novel mechanisms involving inflation interactions); implications of long-range interactions in string theory for black hole physics; and mechanism development for breaking super-symmetry and stabilizing the extra dimensions of string theory. In her work on early-universe cosmology, she makes extensive contributions to string theory and gravitational physics. Her early work included control of
tachyon condensation
A tachyon () or tachyonic particle is a hypothetical particle that always travels faster than light. Physicists believe that faster-than-light particles cannot exist because they are not consistent with the known laws of physics. If such parti ...
in string theory and resulting resolution of some spacetime singularities (with
Joseph Polchinski
Joseph Gerard Polchinski Jr. (; May 16, 1954 – February 2, 2018) was an American theoretical physicist and string theorist.
Biography
Polchinski was born in White Plains, New York, the elder of two children to Joseph Gerard Polchinski Sr. (1929 ...
and others). Other significant research contributions include the construction of the first models of dark energy in string theory, some basic extensions of the
AdS/CFT correspondence to more realistic field theories (with
Shamit Kachru), as well as the discovery of a predictive new mechanism for
cosmic inflation involving
D-brane
In string theory, D-branes, short for ''Dirichlet membrane'', are a class of extended objects upon which open strings can end with Dirichlet boundary conditions, after which they are named. D-branes were discovered by Jin Dai, Leigh, and Polch ...
dynamics (with
David Tong) which helped motivate more systematic analyses of primordial non-Gaussianity.
Silverstein is married to fellow string theorist
Shamit Kachru; both were doctoral students of
Edward Witten
Edward Witten (born August 26, 1951) is an American mathematical and theoretical physicist. He is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Witten is a researcher in string theory, q ...
.
Academic appointments
*Postdoctoral associate, Rutgers University, 1996–1997
*Assistant professor,
SLAC
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center,
is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S. Departme ...
,
Stanford, 1997–2001
*Associate professor,
SLAC
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center,
is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S. Departme ...
and
Stanford Physics Department, Stanford, 2001–2006
*Professor,
SLAC
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center,
is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S. Departme ...
and
Stanford Physics Department, Stanford, 2006–2016
*Professor,
Stanford Physics Department, Stanford, 2006–Present
*Professor, University of California Physics Department
Awards and honors
*
MacArthur Fellow
The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...
, 1999
*DOE Outstanding Junior Investigator, 1999–2001
*Sloan Fellowship, 1999–2003
*Bergmann Memorial Award, 2000
*
APS Fellow, 2016 "For fundamental contributions to quantum gravity and early universe cosmology."
*
Simons Investigator, 2017
*
American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) Elected Fellow, 2020
References
External links
Stanford University: Eva SilversteinList of her papers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Silverstein, Eva
1970 births
Living people
MacArthur Fellows
Harvard University alumni
Princeton University alumni
Stanford University Department of Physics faculty
21st-century American physicists
American women physicists
Simons Investigator
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
21st-century American women scientists
Fellows of the American Physical Society