Andrew Strominger

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Andrew Strominger is the Gwill E. York Professor of Physics and director of the Center for the Fundamental Laws of Nature at Harvard University. His research focuses on the use of theoretical methods to resolve the conflict between Einstein’s general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. This has, along the way, entailed the study of black holes, quantum gravity, quantum field theory, string theory, fluid dynamics, and algebraic geometry.

While at the Radcliffe Institute, Strominger will study the laws governing the edges of the visible universe known as event horizons, which surround a black hole or a region of the universe speeding away faster than light. Event horizons are governed by a strikingly simple and elegant set of quantum laws, which were discovered four decades ago by Jacob Bekenstein and Stephen Hawking and have vexed physicists ever since.

Strominger received his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982. Before moving to Harvard in 1997, he was a faculty member in the physics department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of about 200 publications.