Andrew Eben Strominger (; born 1955) 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 experimen ...

who is the director of Harvard's

Center for the Fundamental Laws of Nature The Center for the Fundamental Laws of Nature is a research center at Harvard University that focuses on theoretical particle physics and cosmology. About The Center for the Fundamental Laws of nature is the high-energy theory group in Harvard's ...

. He has made significant contributions to

quantum gravity Quantum gravity (QG) is a field of theoretical physics that seeks to describe gravity according to the principles of quantum mechanics; it deals with environments in which neither gravitational nor quantum effects can be ignored, such as in the vi ...

and

string theory 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 interac ...

. These include his work on Calabi–Yau compactification and topology change in string theory, and on the stringy origin of

black hole entropy In physics, black hole thermodynamics is the area of study that seeks to reconcile the laws of thermodynamics with the existence of black hole event horizons. As the study of the statistical mechanics of black-body radiation led to the development ...

. He is a senior fellow at the

Society of Fellows The Society of Fellows is a group of scholars selected at the beginnings of their careers by Harvard University for their potential to advance academic wisdom, upon whom are bestowed distinctive opportunities to foster their individual and intell ...

, and is the Gwill E. York Professor of Physics.

Education

Strominger received his bachelor's degree at

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

in 1977 and his master's degree at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. He then received his PhD at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

in 1982 under the supervision of

Roman Jackiw Roman Wladimir Jackiw (; born 8 November 1939) is a theoretical physicist and Dirac Medallist. Born in Lubliniec, Poland in 1939 to a Ukrainian family, the family later moved to Austria and Germany before settling in New York City when Jackiw w ...

. Prior to joining Harvard as a professor in 1997, he held a faculty position at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of over 200 publications.

Research

Notable contributions

* a paper with

Cumrun Vafa Cumrun Vafa ( fa, کامران وفا ; born 1 August 1960) is an Iranian-American theoretical physicist and the Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Harvard University. Early life and education Cumrun Vafa was born in Tehra ...

that explains the microscopic origin of the

, originally calculated thermodynamically by Stephen Hawking and

Jacob Bekenstein Jacob David Bekenstein ( he, יעקב בקנשטיין; May 1, 1947 – August 16, 2015) was an American and Israeli theoretical physicist who made fundamental contributions to the foundation of black hole thermodynamics and to other aspects of ...

, from string theory * a paper with Philip Candelas, Gary Horowitz, and

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 ...

in the 1980s about the relevance of

Calabi–Yau manifold In algebraic geometry, a Calabi–Yau manifold, also known as a Calabi–Yau space, is a particular type of manifold which has properties, such as Ricci flatness, yielding applications in theoretical physics. Particularly in superstri ...

s for obtaining the

Standard Model The Standard Model of particle physics is the theory describing three of the four known fundamental forces (electromagnetism, electromagnetic, weak interaction, weak and strong interactions - excluding gravity) in the universe and classifying a ...

from

* other articles discussing the dS/CFT correspondence and the Kerr/CFT correspondence (variations of the

AdS/CFT In theoretical physics, the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence, sometimes called Maldacena duality or gauge/gravity duality, is a conjectured relationship between two kinds of physical theories. On one side are anti-de Sitter s ...

correspondence) * S-branes (a variation of D-branes) * OM-theory (with

Shiraz Minwalla Shiraz Naval Minwalla (born January 2, 1972) is an Indian theoretical physicist and string theorist. He is a faculty member in the Department of Theoretical Physics at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. Prior to his present positio ...

and

Nathan Seiberg Nathan "Nati" Seiberg (; born September 22, 1956) is an Israeli American theoretical physicist who works on quantum field theory and string theory. He is currently a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, United ...

) * noncommutative

soliton In mathematics and physics, a soliton or solitary wave is a self-reinforcing wave packet that maintains its shape while it propagates at a constant velocity. Solitons are caused by a cancellation of nonlinear and dispersive effects in the medium ...

s (with

Anastasia Volovich Anastasia Volovich (born July 22, 1976) is a professor of physics at Brown University. She works on theoretical physics: quantum field theory, general relativity, string theory and related areas in mathematics. Early life and education Volov ...

and Rajesh Gopakumar) * massless black holes in the form of wrapped D3-branes that regulate the physics of a

conifold In mathematics and string theory, a conifold is a generalization of a manifold. Unlike manifolds, conifolds can contain conical singularities, i.e. points whose neighbourhoods look like cones over a certain base. In physics, in particular in fl ...

and allow

topology In mathematics, topology (from the Greek language, Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a mathematical object, geometric object that are preserved under Continuous function, continuous Deformation theory, deformations, such ...

change * the

SYZ conjecture The SYZ conjecture is an attempt to understand the mirror symmetry conjecture, an issue in theoretical physics and mathematics. The original conjecture was proposed in a paper by Strominger, Yau, and Zaslow, entitled "Mirror Symmetry is ''T''- ...

, an interpretation of

mirror symmetry In mathematics, reflection symmetry, line symmetry, mirror symmetry, or mirror-image symmetry is symmetry with respect to a reflection. That is, a figure which does not change upon undergoing a reflection has reflectional symmetry. In 2D ther ...

as a special case of

T-duality In theoretical physics, T-duality (short for target-space duality) is an equivalence of two physical theories, which may be either quantum field theories or string theories. In the simplest example of this relationship, one of the theories descr ...

(with

Eric Zaslow Eric Zaslow is an American mathematical physicist at Northwestern University. Biography Zaslow attended Harvard University, earning his Ph.D. in physics in 1995, with thesis "Kinks, twists, and folds : exploring the geometric musculature of qua ...

and

Shing-Tung Yau Shing-Tung Yau (; ; born April 4, 1949) is a Chinese-American mathematician and the William Caspar Graustein Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University. In April 2022, Yau announced retirement from Harvard to become Chair Professor of mathem ...

) * purely cubic action for

string field theory String or strings may refer to: * String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian ani ...

* superstrings with

torsion Torsion may refer to: Science * Torsion (mechanics), the twisting of an object due to an applied torque * Torsion of spacetime, the field used in Einstein–Cartan theory and ** Alternatives to general relativity * Torsion angle, in chemistry Bi ...

* a study of the relationship between asymptotic symmetries in asymptotically flat spacetimes, soft theorems and memory effects * an analytic calculation of the exact spectrum of gravitational wave emission from extreme mass ratio inspirals (EMRIs) into rapidly rotating black holes (these gravitational waves are expected to be detected with future space-based

gravitational wave detector A gravitational-wave detector (used in a gravitational-wave observatory) is any device designed to measure tiny distortions of spacetime called gravitational waves. Since the 1960s, various kinds of gravitational-wave detectors have been built ...

s such as

eLISA The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) (, ) is a commonly used analytical biochemistry assay, first described by Eva Engvall and Peter Perlmann in 1971. The assay uses a solid-phase type of enzyme immunoassay (EIA) to detect the presence ...

)

Awards

In recognition of his accomplishments, Strominger has been awarded numerous prizes, fellowships, and honorary professorships. These include the Klein Medal from the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special ...

, the 2008 Eisenbud Prize from the American Mathematical Society, the 2014

Dirac Medal The Dirac Medal is the name of four awards in the field of theoretical physics, computational chemistry, and mathematics, awarded by different organizations, named in honour of Professor Paul Dirac, one of the great theoretical physicists of the 20 ...

from 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 ...

, which he received for his contributions to the origin, development, and further understanding of string theory, and the 2017 Fundamental Physics Breakthrough Prize. Furthermore, he received the Physics Frontiers Breakthrough Prize from the Milner Foundation along with colleague

in 2014. This award was bestowed upon the pair in honor of their "numerous deep and groundbreaking contributions to quantum field theory, quantum gravity, string theory and geometry." The Foundation also recognized their "joint statistical derivation of the Bekenstein–Hawking area–entropy relation unified the laws of thermodynamics with the laws of black hole dynamics and revealed the holographic nature of quantum spacetime." In 2020, he received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

References

External links

Home page of Strominger at Harvard

Harvard Physics Department Newsletter describing the Strominger group's research (pp. 21-25)

Strominger's articles in the INSPIRE-HEP database
{{DEFAULTSORT:Strominger, Andrew 1955 births Living people 21st-century American physicists Harvard University faculty Harvard College alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni MIT Center for Theoretical Physics alumni American string theorists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences MIT Department of Physics alumni Fellows of the American Physical Society