Alexander Vilenkin is the Leonard and Jane Bernstein Professor and Director of the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts University. A theoretical physicist who has been working in the field of cosmology for 35 years, Vilenkin has written over 150 papers and is responsible for introducing the ideas of eternal inflation and quantum creation of the…
Kip Thorne is a theoretical physicist, known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. He was the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology until 2009. Thorne received his BS degree from Caltech in 1962 and his PhD from Princeton University in 1965. After two years of postdoctoral study, Thorne…
Frank Jennings Tipler is a mathematical physicist and cosmologist, holding a joint appointment in the Departments of Mathematics and Physics at Tulane University. He holds a BS in Physics from MIT and a PhD from the University of Maryland. Tipler was hired in a series of postdoctoral researcher positions in physics at three universities, with…
Frank Wilczek is an American theoretical physicist, mathematician and a Nobel laureate. He is currently the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his Bachelor of Science in Mathematics at the University of Chicago, a Master of Arts in Mathematics at Princeton University, and a PhD in Physics at…
Leonard Susskind is the Felix Bloch Professor of Theoretical Physics at Stanford University, and Director of the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics. He received a BS in physics from City College of New York and a PhD from Cornell University. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of…
Jill Tarter is the former Director of the Center for SETI Research at the SETI Institute. She earned her Bachelor of Engineering Physics Degree with Distinction from Cornell University and a MS and a PhD in Astronomy from the University of California, Berkeley. Tarter served as Project Scientist for NASA’s SETI program, the High Resolution…
Wojciech Hubert Zurek is a Polish-born naturalized American theoretical physicist and a leading authority on quantum theory, especially decoherence and non-equilibrium dynamics of symmetry breaking and resulting defect generation (known as Kibble-Zurek mechanism). He was educated in Kraków, Poland (MS. 1974) and Austin, Texas (PhD 1979). He spent two years at Caltech as a Tolman…
Steven Weinberg is an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in Physics for his contributions to the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles. Weinberg received his Bachelor’s degree from Cornell University. He studied at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, and earned his PhD in Physics at Princeton University. He…
Douglas Vakoch is the Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute, as well as the only social scientist employed by a SETI organization. He received his BA in Comparative Religion from Carleton College and his PhD in Clinical Psychology from SUNY Stony Brook. Vakoch leads the SETI Institute’s project to compose interstellar messages…
Victor J. Stenger (1935–2014) was a retired elementary particle physicist. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Newark College of Engineering and later a Master of Science degree and PhD in physics from UCLA. He then took a position on the faculty of the University of Hawaii, retiring to Colorado in…
Martin John Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist. He has been Astronomer Royal since 1995 and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge from 2004 to 2012. He was President of the Royal Society between 2005 and 2010. Rees was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge (where he attained a first class degree…
Ken Olum is a Research Professor in the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts University, where he has worked since 1997. He studies gravitational waves, cosmic strings, negative energies in quantum field theory, energy conditions and exotic phenomena in general relativity, and anthropic reasoning and other issues in cosmology. He is a member of the NANOGrav…