Shamit Kachru is an American theoretical physicist, a professor emeritus of physics at Stanford University, and a former Wells Family Director of the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics. He served as the Stanford Physics Department Chair from 2018 to 2021. He retired in 2023.
Eva Silverstein is an American theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and string theorist. She is a professor of physics at Stanford University and director of the Modern Inflationary Cosmology collaboration within the Simons Foundation Origins of the Universe initiative.
Sean Michael Carroll is an American theoretical physicist and philosopher who specializes in quantum mechanics, cosmology, and the philosophy of science. He is the Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. He was formerly a research professor at the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) department of physics. He also is currently an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute, and he has been a contributor to the physics blog Cosmic Variance, where he has published in scientific journals such as Nature as well as other publications, including The New York Times, Sky & Telescope, and New Scientist. He is known for his atheism, his vocal critique of theism and defence of naturalism. He is considered a prolific public speaker and science popularizer. In 2007, Carroll was named NSF Distinguished Lecturer by the National Science Foundation.
Ann Elizabeth Nelson was a particle physicist and professor of physics in the Particle Theory Group at the University of Washington from 1994 until her death. Nelson received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2004, and she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011 and the National Academy of Sciences in 2012. She was a recipient of the 2018 J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics, presented annually by the American Physical Society and considered one of the most prestigious prizes in physics.
Katherine Freese is a theoretical astrophysicist. She is currently a professor of physics at the University of Texas at Austin, where she holds the Jeff and Gail Kodosky Endowed Chair in Physics. She is known for her work in theoretical cosmology at the interface of particle physics and astrophysics.
Alessandra Buonanno is an Italian-American theoretical physicist and director at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Potsdam. She is the head of the "Astrophysical and Cosmological Relativity" department. She holds a research professorship at the University of Maryland, College Park, and honorary professorships at the Humboldt University in Berlin, and the University of Potsdam. She is a leading member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, which observed gravitational waves from a binary black-hole merger in 2015.
Gregory Gabadadze is a Georgian theoretical physicist specializing in the field of gravity. He holds the position of Professor of Physics at New York University, where he also serves as the Dean for Science. In his previous roles at NYU, Gabadadze was the Chair of the Department of Physics and the Director of the Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics.
Bruce Winstein was an experimental physicist and cosmologist noted for his early work in elementary particle physics, particularly work toward demonstrating a serious asymmetry between particles and their anti-particles. Later in his career, he worked in experimental cosmology, measuring polarization in the microwave background radiation whose properties date back to the early universe.
Marc Kamionkowski is an American theoretical physicist and currently the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University. His research interests include particle physics, dark matter, inflation, the cosmic microwave background and gravitational waves.
Ma Chung-Pei is an astrophysicist and cosmologist. She is the Judy Chandler Webb Professor of Astronomy and Physics at the University of California, Berkeley. She led the teams that discovered several of largest known black holes from 2011 to 2016.
Patricia Burchat is the Gabilan Professor of Physics at Stanford University who researches experimental particle physics and cosmology. She is interested in mapping dark matter in the universe, and understanding the nature of dark energy. She was named a fellow of the American Physical Society in 2001, and a Guggenheim Fellow in 2005. In 2012 she became a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Katherine J. Mack is a theoretical cosmologist who holds the Hawking Chair in Cosmology and Science Communication at the Perimeter Institute. Her academic research investigates dark matter, vacuum decay, and the Epoch of Reionization. Mack is also a popular science communicator who participates in social media and regularly writes for Scientific American, Slate, Sky & Telescope, Time, and Cosmos.
Rachel A. Rosen is a physicist and associate professor of Theoretical Physics at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research involves quantum field theory, cosmology, astrophysics and massive gravity. In particular, she has investigated the problem of the inconsistencies known as "ghosts," and how to formulate models of massive gravity that avoid them.
Martin B. Einhorn is an American theoretical physicist.
Abigail Goodhue Vieregg is a professor of physics at the Enrico Fermi Institute and Kavli Institute of Cosmology, University of Chicago, specializing in neutrino astrophysics and cosmology. Her work focuses on cosmic high-energy neutrinos and mapping the cosmic microwave background.
Joshua A. Frieman is a theoretical astrophysicist who lives and works in the United States. He is a senior scientist at Fermilab and a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago. Frieman is known for his work studying dark energy and cosmology, and he co-founded the Dark Energy Survey experiment. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2022.
Iain William Stewart is a Canadian-American theoretical nuclear and particle physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is the Otto and Jane Morningstar Professor of Science and the current Director of the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics (CTP). He is best known for his work on effective field theories and for developing the Soft Collinear Effective Theory (SCET).
Lawrence John Hall is a theoretical particle physicist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley and the Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics.
Anna Elisabeth Krause is a German-American astronomer and assistant professor of physics at the University of Arizona.
Sarah Shandera is a physicist and an associate professor at the Pennsylvania State University. Her research currently focuses on using quantum systems, quantum information, and out-of-equilibrium systems as tools to study open questions in gravity and cosmology. She serves as a member of the Executive Team of the next generation ground-based Cosmic microwave background experiment,CMB S-4 collaboration.
