Clifford V. Johnson

Last updated

Clifford Victor Johnson
Born (1968-03-05) 5 March 1968 (age 55)
London, United Kingdom
NationalityBritish
Alma mater University of Southampton (PhD)
Imperial College London (BSc)
Awards Maxwell Medal and Prize (2005)
Andrew Gemant Award (2022)
Scientific career
Fields theoretical physics, particle physics, mathematical physics
Institutions University of California, Santa Barbara
Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics
University of Southern California
Institute for Advanced Study
Princeton University
Durham University

Clifford Victor Johnson (born 5 March 1968) [1] is a British theoretical physicist and professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara department of Physics.

Contents

Biography

Johnson was born in London, England, [2] and lived in Montserrat for 10 years. [3] From an early age, Johnson was interested in electronics. He would spend time reading on the subject, and designing small machinery such as radios. [4] He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Physics from Imperial College London in 1989 and he completed his Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics and Physics from the University of Southampton in 1992.

Johnson's research focus is in superstring theory and particle physics, specifically related to strongly coupled phenomena. [5] [6] He has previously worked at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the Institute for Advanced Study, Durham University and Princeton University as a postdoctoral fellow. [7] He worked as an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky from 1997 to 1999, and has been a physics professor at the University of Southern California's Department of Physics and Astronomy. [8] In July 2023, he returned to the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received the 2005 Maxwell Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics, "For his outstanding contribution to string theory, quantum gravity and its interface with strongly coupled field theory, in particular for his work on understanding the censorship of singularities and the thermodynamic properties of quantum spacetime. [9] [10] [11] [12] He received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 1997. [7] In 2005, The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education listed Clifford Johnson as the most highly cited black professor of mathematics or a related field at an American university or college. [13] He was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2021. [14] In 2022, Johnson was award AIP's Andrew Gemant award for his artistic and creative approach towards physics outreach and education. [15] Johnson has also been awarded the Institute of Physics' James Clerk Maxwell Medal and Prize. [16]

He also actively works to promote science in the public and physics outreach. As part of this effort, he regularly appears on the History Channel series The Universe and acts as a science consultant for the Discovery Channel. [17] Johnson founded the African Summer Theory Institute, "which brings teachers, researchers, and students of all levels together for a month-long conference on a science topic—a different one every year—to discuss, to network, and, of course, to learn." [18] Johnson is also the author of an introductory scientific graphic novel, The Dialogues. The book is a discussion on how to talk about scientific topics and exchange scientific ideas. [19]

He has also served as a science consultant for science fiction films and television shows including Avengers: Endgame and Star Trek: Discovery . He made a brief cameo appearance in the 2020 film Palm Springs. [20] In 2023 he was a guest on The Life Scientific on BBC Radio 4. [21]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murray Gell-Mann</span> American physicist (1929–2019)

Murray Gell-Mann was an American physicist who played a preeminent role in the development of the theory of elementary particles. Gell-Mann introduced the concept of quarks as the fundamental building blocks of the strongly interacting particles, and the renormalization group as a foundational element of quantum field theory and statistical mechanics. He played key roles in developing the concept of chirality in the theory of the weak interactions and spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in the strong interactions, which controls the physics of the light mesons. In the 1970s he was a co-inventor of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) which explains the confinement of quarks in mesons and baryons and forms a large part of the Standard Model of elementary particles and forces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kip Thorne</span> American physicist (born 1940)

Kip Stephen Thorne is an American theoretical physicist known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Gross</span> American particle physicist and string theorist

David Jonathan Gross is an American theoretical physicist and string theorist. Along with Frank Wilczek and David Politzer, he was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of asymptotic freedom. Gross is the Chancellor's Chair Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) of the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and was formerly the KITP director and holder of their Frederick W. Gluck Chair in Theoretical Physics. He is also a faculty member in the UCSB Physics Department and is currently affiliated with the Institute for Quantum Studies at Chapman University in California. He is a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lisa Randall</span> American theoretical physicist

Lisa Randall is an American theoretical physicist and Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University. Her research includes the fundamental forces of nature and dimensions of space. She studies the Standard Model, supersymmetry, possible solutions to the hierarchy problem concerning the relative weakness of gravity, cosmology of dimensions, baryogenesis, cosmological inflation, and dark matter. She contributed to the Randall–Sundrum model, first published in 1999 with Raman Sundrum.

Hans Christian von Baeyer is a Chancellor Professor of Physics at the College of William and Mary. His books include Information: The New Language of Science, Warmth Disperses and Time Passes: The History of Heat and QBism: The Future of Quantum Physics.

Mark Brian Wise is a Canadian-American theoretical physicist. He has conducted research in elementary particle physics and cosmology. He is best known for his role in the development of heavy quark effective theory (HQET), a mathematical formalism that has allowed physicists to make predictions about otherwise intractable problems in the theory of the strong nuclear interactions. He has also published work on mathematical models for finance and risk assessment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lawrence Krauss</span> American particle physicist and cosmologist

Lawrence Maxwell Krauss is a Canadian-American theoretical physicist and cosmologist who taught at Arizona State University (ASU), Yale University, and Case Western Reserve University. He founded ASU's Origins Project in 2008 to investigate fundamental questions about the universe and served as the project's director.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Institute of Physics</span> American non-profit organization

The American Institute of Physics (AIP) promotes science and the profession of physics, publishes physics journals, and produces publications for scientific and engineering societies. The AIP is made up of various member societies. Its corporate headquarters are at the American Center for Physics in College Park, Maryland, but the institute also has offices in Melville, New York, and Beijing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James H. Stith</span> American physicist

James H. Stith is an American physicist and educator. He is known for his influential roles in multiple scientific societies. He is the former vice president of the Physics Resource Center at the American Institute of Physics, a past president of the American Association of Physics Teachers, and a past president of the National Society of Black Physicists.

The Andrew Gemant Award is a prize awarded by the American Institute of Physics to a person who has made substantial cultural, artistic, or humanistic contributions to physics. The award is named after Andrew Gemant, a pioneer in materials science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony M. Johnson</span> American physicist, ultrafast optics (born 1954)

Anthony Michael Johnson is an American experimental physicist, a professor of physics, and a professor of computer science and electrical engineering at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). He is the director of the Center for Advanced Studies in Photonics Research (CASPR), also situated on campus at UMBC. Since his election to the 2002 term as president of the Optical Society, formerly the Optical Society of America, Johnson has the distinction of being the first and only African-American president to date. Johnson's research interests include the ultrafast photophysics and nonlinear optical properties of bulk, nanostructured, and quantum well semiconductor structures, ultrashort pulse propagation in fibers and high-speed lightwave systems. His research has helped to better understand processes that occur in ultrafast time frames of 1 quadrillionth of a second. Ultrashort pulses of light have been used to address technical and logistical challenges in medicine, telecommunications, homeland security, and have many other applications that enhance contemporary life.

Nikita Alexandrovich Nekrasov is a mathematical and theoretical physicist at the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics and C.N.Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook University in New York, and a Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Don Lincoln</span> American physicist

Don Lincoln is an American physicist, author, host of the YouTube channel Fermilab, and science communicator. He conducts research in particle physics at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and was an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Notre Dame, although he is no longer affiliated with the university. He received a Ph.D. in experimental particle physics from Rice University in 1994. In 1995, he was a co-discoverer of the top quark. He has co-authored hundreds of research papers, and more recently, was a member of the team that discovered the Higgs boson in 2012.

Edward Allan Frieman was an American physicist who worked on plasma physics and nuclear fusion. He was the director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography from 1986 through 1996, and then the senior vice president of science and technology at the Science Applications International Corporation from 1996 on until his death in 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Milton Dean Slaughter</span> American physicist and professor

Milton Dean Slaughter is an American theoretical and phenomenological physicist and affiliate professor of physics at Florida International University. Slaughter was a visiting associate professor of physics in the Center for Theoretical Physics, University of Maryland, College Park while on sabbatical from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) of the University of California from 1984 to 1985. He is also chair emeritus and university research professor of physics emeritus at the University of New Orleans (UNO). Prior to joining UNO as chair of the physics department: He was a postdoctoral fellow in the LANL Theoretical Division Elementary Particles and Field Theory Group (T-8); LANL Theoretical Division Detonation Theory and Applications Group (T-14) staff physicist; LANL Theoretical Division affirmative action representative and staff physicist; LANL assistant theoretical division leader for administration and staff physicist (T-DO); LANL Nuclear and Particle Physics Group staff physicist—Medium Energy Physics Division (MP-4); and LANL Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) project manager (laboratory-wide).

Stephen George Brush is a scholar in the field of history of science whose career spanned the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. His research resulted in hundreds of journal articles and over a dozen books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sekazi Mtingwa</span> American theoretical high-energy physicist (born 1949)

Sekazi Kauze Mtingwa: is an American theoretical high-energy physicist. He is a co-recipient of the 2017 Robert R. Wilson Prize for Achievement in the Physics of Particle Accelerators. He is the first African-American to be awarded the prize. Mtingwa was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2008 for "his definitive treatment of Intrabeam scattering, his contributions to the wakefield acceleration, and his early recognition of the fixed target physics potential of the next generation electron-positron collider." He also co-founded the National Society of Black Physicists in 1977 and served in various other national and international initiatives.

Thomas Michael O'Neil is an American physicist who specializes in plasma physics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel R. Altschuler</span> Uruguayan physicist

Daniel R. Altschuler is a Uruguayan physicist linked in his professional activity to the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, where he was director from 1992 to 2003. He is a writer, known for his science outreach work, and is very sensitive to the distinction between science and pseudoscience. In 2010 he received the Andrew Gemant Award from the American Institute of Physics.


Wendell Talbot Hill III is an American physicist and professor at the University of Maryland. His research career has largely focused on the intersection of laser physics and quantum science.

References

  1. ↑ Career data from American Men and Women of Science, Thomson Gale 2004
  2. ↑ "Clifford Johnson's Biography". The HistoryMakers. Retrieved 8 June 2023.
  3. ↑ "Clifford V. Johnson - Mathematician of the African Diaspora". www.math.buffalo.edu.
  4. ↑ "Clifford Johnson's Biography". The HistoryMakers. Retrieved 8 June 2023.
  5. ↑ Strings Link the Ultracold With the Superhot Science News, 25 April 2009,
  6. ↑ String Theory Officially Useful, May Not Represent Reality Ars Technica, 17 February 2009
  7. 1 2 "Faculty Profile > USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences". dornsifelive.usc.edu.
  8. ↑ "Clifford Johnson's Biography". The HistoryMakers. Retrieved 8 June 2023.
  9. ↑ Recipients of the Maxwell Medal and Prize Institute of Physics
  10. ↑ Faces and Places Archived 20 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine Cern Courier 4 October 2004
  11. ↑ U.K. Society Lauds USC College Professor USC College News 1 October 2004
  12. ↑ Careers in Science: Professor of Physics Wired Science 11 January 2008
  13. ↑ The Most Highly Cited Black Mathematicians The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 2005
  14. ↑ "APS Fellow Archive". www.aps.org. Retrieved 15 October 2021.
  15. ↑ "Physics is Culture: Clifford V. Johnson Selected for AIP's 2022 Andrew Gemant Award | American Institute of Physics". www.aip.org. Retrieved 8 June 2023.
  16. ↑ "How to become one of the world's top physicists — and have an IMDB page". Inverse. 23 September 2020. Retrieved 8 June 2023.
  17. ↑ McNamara, Mary (7 December 2008). "A scientific discovery". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 5 October 2009. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  18. ↑ Science Hero: Clifford V. Johnson Science Heroes
  19. ↑ "How to become one of the world's top physicists — and have an IMDB page". Inverse. 23 September 2020. Retrieved 8 June 2023.
  20. ↑ Kohn, Eric (9 July 2020). "Meet the Physicist Who Is Changing Movie Science, from 'Avengers' to 'Palm Springs'". IndieWire. Archived from the original on 14 July 2020. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  21. ↑ "Making sense of black holes and movie plots" . Retrieved 31 January 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.