Fernando Quevedo Rodríguez (born 12 May 1956) is a

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

. He was the director of the Abdus Salam

International Centre for Theoretical Physics The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) is an international research institute for physical and mathematical sciences that operates under a tripartite agreement between the Italian Government, United Nations Education ...

(ICTP) between October 2009 and November 2019. Quevedo was born in 1956 in San José,

Costa Rica Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...

and obtained his early education in Guatemala. He obtained his BSc in physics from the

Universidad del Valle de Guatemala The Universidad del Valle de Guatemala (UVG) (University of the Valley of Guatemala) is a private, not-for-profit, secular university in Guatemala City, Guatemala. It was founded in 1966 by a private foundation, which had previously overseen t ...

in 1979, and his Ph.D. from the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

in 1986 under the supervision of Nobel laurate

Steven Weinberg Steven Weinberg (; May 3, 1933 – July 23, 2021) was an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in physics for his contributions with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow to the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic interactio ...

. Following a string of research appointments at

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...

, Switzerland,

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...

in Canada, Institut de Physique in Neuchatel, Switzerland, and the

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, ...

, USA, as well as a brief term as professor of physics at the

National Autonomous University of Mexico The National Autonomous University of Mexico ( es, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM) is a public research university in Mexico. It is consistently ranked as one of the best universities in Latin America, where it's also the bigges ...

(UNAM). Dr. Quevedo later joined the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, UK, in 1998, where he has been Professor of Theoretical Physics and Fellow of Gonville and Caius College. He has been awarded the

Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award The Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award was an award made by the Royal Society from 2000 to 2020. It was administered by the Royal Society and jointly funded by the Wolfson Foundation and the UK Office of Science and Technology, to provide ...

, Doctorate Honoris Causa from

Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala The Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala (USAC, ''University of San Carlos of Guatemala'') is the largest and oldest university of Guatemala; it is also the fourth founded in the Americas. Established in the Kingdom of Guatemala during the Spani ...

and

, John Solomon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and, alongside

Anamaría Font Anamaría Font is a Venezuelan theoretical physicist, with most of her work focusing on string theory. Early life and education She was born in Anaco, Venezuela. She obtained her Bachelor degree in physics, Cum Laude in 1980 from Simon Boli ...

, won the 1998

ICTP Prize The International Centre for Theoretical Physics Prize, ICTP Prize, worth 3000 Euros is awarded to a young (under 40) physicist or mathematician from a developing country to promote theoretical mathematics and physics research in the developing wor ...

. He has been a fellow of

the World Academy of Sciences The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) is a merit-based science academy established for developing countries, uniting 1,000 scientists in some 70 countries. Its principal aim is to promote scientific capacity and excellence for sustainable devel ...

since 2010. He has authored more than 100 papers. He has taught courses on

differential equations In mathematics, a differential equation is an equation that relates one or more unknown functions and their derivatives. In applications, the functions generally represent physical quantities, the derivatives represent their rates of change, an ...

, complex methods,

supersymmetry In a supersymmetric theory the equations for force and the equations for matter are identical. In theoretical and mathematical physics, any theory with this property has the principle of supersymmetry (SUSY). Dozens of supersymmetric theories e ...

and extra dimensions. He has discussed the importance of international research institutions for science diplomacy.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Quevedo, Fernando Guatemalan physicists People associated with CERN Living people Cambridge mathematicians Fellows of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge 1956 births