Anastasia Volovich (born July 22, 1976) is a professor of physics at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

. She works on theoretical physics: quantum field theory, general relativity, string theory and related areas in mathematics.

Early life and education

Volovich was born in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

. She attended the

Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

for her undergraduate studies where she completed her master's degree in 1999. Volovich moved to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

for her graduate studies and completed her doctorate under the supervision of

Andrew Strominger Andrew Eben Strominger (; born 1955) is an American theoretical physicist who is the director of Harvard's Center for the Fundamental Laws of Nature. He has made significant contributions to quantum gravity and string theory. These include his w ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 2002.

Research and career

Volovich became Richard and Edna Salomon Assistant Professor at Brown University in 2006 after her post-doctoral research at the

Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics The Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) is a research institute of the University of California, Santa Barbara. KITP is one of the most renowned institutes for theoretical physics in the world, and brings theorists in physics and rela ...

in Santa Barbara and William D. Loughlin Membership at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In 2011 she was promoted to an associate professor of physics with tenure, and in 2016 to Professor of Physics. Volovich's research interests include scattering amplitudes in quantum field theory and gravity. The goal of this research program is to deepen our understanding of fundamental properties of

gauge Gauge ( or ) may refer to: Measurement * Gauge (instrument), any of a variety of measuring instruments * Gauge (firearms) * Wire gauge, a measure of the size of a wire ** American wire gauge, a common measure of nonferrous wire diameter, es ...

and gravity theories by discovering and exploring the hidden mathematical structures of scattering amplitudes and to use these novel structures as much as possible to aid practical calculations for experimentally relevant processes. Her work includes applying

polylogarithm In mathematics, the polylogarithm (also known as Jonquière's function, for Alfred Jonquière) is a special function of order and argument . Only for special values of does the polylogarithm reduce to an elementary function such as the natur ...

s to scattering amplitudes in

N = 4 supersymmetric Yang–Mills theory ''N'' = 4 supersymmetric Yang–Mills (SYM) theory is a mathematical and physical model created to study particles through a simple system, similar to string theory, with conformal symmetry. It is a simplified toy theory based on Yang ...

. Along with her colleagues Goncharov, Spradlin, and Vergu, she managed to significantly simplify the expression for 6-point two-loop maximally-helicity-violating (MHV) amplitudes.

Awards and honours

* 2007

National Science Foundation CAREER Award The National Science Foundation CAREER awards, presented by the National Science Foundation (NSF), are in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through research and education, and the integration of these endeavors i ...

* 2008

Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) is the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers. The White ...

* 2011 Department of Energy Early Career Award * 2011

Sloan Research Fellowship The Sloan Research Fellowships are awarded annually by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation since 1955 to "provide support and recognition to early-career scientists and scholars". This program is one of the oldest of its kind in the United States. ...

* 2015

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 ...

Simons Investigator in Physics * 2017

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...

IBM Einstein Fellowship * 2018

Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists was established in 2007 through a partnership between the Blavatnik Family Foundation, headed by Leonard Blavatnik (Russian: Леонид Валентинович Блаватник), chairman of Access Indust ...

National Finalist * 2019 Elected Fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

Selected publications

* (with M. Spradlin, A. Strominger) Les Houches lectures on de Sitter space
ArXiv
* (with R. Roiban, M. Spradlin) On the tree level S matrix of Yang-Mills theory, Phys. Rev. D70 (2004) 026009
ArXiv
* (with A. Goncharov, M. Spradlin, C. Vergu) Classical Polylogarithms for Amplitudes and Wilson Loops, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105 (2010) 151605
ArXiv
* (with J. Golden, A. Goncharov, M. Spradlin, C. Vergu) Motivic Amplitudes and Cluster Coordinates, JHEP 1401 (2014) 091
ArXiv

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Volovich, Anastasia Fellows of the American Physical Society Moscow State University alumni Institute for Advanced Study people Brown University faculty Harvard University alumni 1976 births Living people Women physicists