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 is 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 in physics from UCLA and a PhD in Physics. He then took a position on the faculty of the University of Hawaii, retiring to…
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…
Robert John Russell is founder and Director of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS). He is also the Ian G. Barbour Professor of Theology and Science in Residence at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU). He has written and edited a great deal on possible scientific mechanisms for the beliefs of Christianity. Russell…
George Fitzgerald Smoot III is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, Nobel laureate. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006 for his work on the Cosmic Background Explorer with John C. Mather. Smoot’s work has helped further the Big Bang theory of the universe using the Cosmic Background Explorer Satellite (COBE). Smoot donated his share…
Saul Perlmutter is an American astrophysicist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Professor of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also a member of…
The Rev. John Charlton Polkinghorne was an English theoretical physicist, theologian, writer, and Anglican priest. He was professor of Mathematical Physics at the University of Cambridge for 11 years, after which he resigned his chair to study for the priesthood, becoming an ordained Anglican priest. He served as the president of Queens’ College, Cambridge for…