Tasneem Zehra Husain

Last updated

Tasneem Zehra Husain
Born
Lahore, Pakistan
NationalityPakistani
Citizenship Pakistani
Alma mater Kinnaird College
Quaid-i-Azam University
International Center for Theoretical Physics
Stockholm University
Relatives Amir Husain (brother)
AwardsVice-Chancellor's Gold Medal
Scientific career
Fields Theoretical Physics
Institutions Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS)
International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP)
Delaware University (DU)
National Center for Physics (NCP)
Doctoral advisor Ansar Fayyazuddin

Tasneem Zehra Husain is a Pakistani theoretical physicist. She is one of few Pakistani women to obtain a doctorate in physics, and the first Pakistani woman string theorist. [1] An eminent scientist, she has been a guest speaker at a various schools and colleges in an effort to promote science and technology in Pakistan.

Contents

Husain has represented Pakistan at the Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany and led the Pakistan team to the World Year of Physics (WYP) Launch Conference in Paris. In 2013, Husain was invited by the Cambridge Science Festival to be the moderator for a panel of eminent scientists. [2]

In November 2014, Husain released her first novel, "Only the Longest Threads." [3] Kirkus Reviews described the novel as, "A fictional approach to physics that captures both the substance of the theory and the passion of its practitioners." [4]

Biography

Early life

Husain received her early education in Lahore. At the age of eleven, Husain dropped out of a regular school and was home schooled. [5] Husain sat for her O Levels (privately, through the British Council) at the age of 13 and went on to take her A Levels at the age of 15. During these years, Husain wrote extensively. In 1988, she won an international essay competition held by the Children as the Peacemakers Foundation based in California, USA. [2] In an interview given to the Dawn news, Husain has been misquoted as saying that this 'isolation' created problems for her at Kinnaird College, when she went there for her under-graduate education. [5]

Education

Husain attended Kinnaird College in Lahore where she obtained her Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Mathematics and Physics. This was followed by a Master of Science (M.S.) in Physics from the Quaid-i-Azam University [5] in Islamabad. She then went to Trieste, Italy on a scholarship awarded by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) for a yearlong post-graduate degree in the field of High-Energy Physics. [6] Husain obtained her PhD in Theoretical Physics from Stockholm University in 2003, where her thesis advisor was Ansar Fayyazuddin. She completed her PhD in theoretical physics at the age of twenty six, becoming the first Pakistani woman String Theorist. [7] After which she went to Harvard University for a two-year-long post-doctoral research position. [8]

Career in physics

After her post-doctoral stint at Harvard University, Husain moved back to Pakistan, where she joined the Lahore University of Management Sciences's School of Science and Engineering. [9]

She became an Assistant Professor of Physics. Husain's academic research focuses on using eleven-dimensional supergravity to arrive at a classification of the flux backgrounds that arise when M-branes wrap supersymmetric cycles. [10]

Tasneem is also a writer, known for her novel, Only The Longest Threads. She also has written columns for 3quarksdaily.com, and teaches writing classes at CERN. [8]

Select scientific works [11]

Advocate for science in Pakistan

Husain has become a vocal and vehement supporter of science in Pakistan. [2] Keenly interested in education and science popularisation in her country, she designed Pakistan's logo for the World Year of Physics (WYP) and was an active participant in the WYP Physics Stories project, led by Argonne National Laboratory of the United States.

Husain has made contemporary efforts to make basic theoretical physics accessible to high-school students, and has developed a series of animated presentations which she delivered to various high school and college students. [8] Husain has also taught both Mathematics and Physics at her alma mater, Kinnaird College. She has helped train Pakistan's physics team to the International Physics Olympiad. [2] Husain is a trustee and board of directors of the Alif Laila Book Bus Society, a non-profit educational institution catering primarily to under-privileged children.

Notes and references

  1. ↑ Staff (9 May 2019). "Meet Dr Tasneem Husain – Pakistan's first woman string theorist". Web Desk. SAMAA . Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "TASNEEM ZEHRA HUSAIN: Pakistan's Foremost Female theoretical physicist". Amazons Watch Magazine. 21 July 2017. Retrieved 26 March 2024.
  3. ↑ Only the Longest Threads. Philadelphia, PA: Paul Dry Books. 11 November 2014. ISBN   978-1589880887.
  4. ↑ "ONLY THE LONGEST THREADS". kirkusreviews.com. Retrieved 21 July 2017. A fictional approach to physics that captures both the substance of the theory and the passion of its practitioners.
  5. 1 2 3 Mahrukh, Sarwar (2 December 2016). "Inside the life of Pakistan's first female string theorist". The Reviews:DAWN. Dawn News . Retrieved 21 July 2017.
  6. ↑ ICTP, International Centre for Theoretical Physics (2004). "Tasneem Zehra HUSAIN" . Retrieved 27 April 2010.
  7. ↑ "Pakistan's First Female String Theorist Publishes Novel On Scientific Discovery". Webur. 5 December 2014. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  8. 1 2 3 "Tasneem Zehra Husain PD". Institute for Cross Disciplinary Engagement At Dartmouth. Retrieved 6 May 2024.
  9. ↑ Laiba (10 December 2020). "Meet Dr. Tasneem Zehra Husain, Pakistan's First Female String Theorist". WOW 360. Retrieved 26 March 2024.
  10. ↑ Husain, Tasneem Zehra (8 August 2003). "A brane teaser". Journal of High Energy Physics. 2003 (8): 014. arXiv: hep-th/0306248 . Bibcode:2003JHEP...08..014Z. doi:10.1088/1126-6708/2003/08/014. ISSN   1029-8479.
  11. ↑ "Tasneem Zehra Husain's research while affiliated with Harvard University and other places". ResearchGate. Retrieved 6 May 2024.[ dead link ]

External resources

Related Research Articles

In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and interact with each other. On distance scales larger than the string scale, a string looks just like an ordinary particle, with its mass, charge, and other properties determined by the vibrational state of the string. In string theory, one of the many vibrational states of the string corresponds to the graviton, a quantum mechanical particle that carries the gravitational force. Thus, string theory is a theory of quantum gravity.

Cosmic strings are hypothetical 1-dimensional topological defects which may have formed during a symmetry-breaking phase transition in the early universe when the topology of the vacuum manifold associated to this symmetry breaking was not simply connected. Their existence was first contemplated by the theoretical physicist Tom Kibble in the 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brane cosmology</span> Several theories in particle physics and cosmology related to superstring theory and M-theory

Brane cosmology refers to several theories in particle physics and cosmology related to string theory, superstring theory and M-theory.

Tachyon condensation is a process in particle physics in which a system can lower its potential energy by spontaneously producing particles. The end result is a "condensate" of particles that fills the volume of the system. Tachyon condensation is closely related to second-order phase transitions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ashoke Sen</span> Indian physicist (born 1956)

Ashoke Sen FRS is an Indian theoretical physicist and distinguished professor at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS), Bangalore. A former distinguished professor at the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad, He is also an honorary fellow in National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) India he is also a Morningstar Visiting professor at MIT and a distinguished professor at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study. His main area of work is string theory. He was among the first recipients of the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics "for opening the path to the realization that all string theories are different limits of the same underlying theory".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Shenker</span> American physicist

Stephen Hart Shenker is an American theoretical physicist who works on string theory. He is a professor at Stanford University and former director of the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics. His brother Scott Shenker is a computer scientist.

Burt Ovrut is an American theoretical physicist best known for his work on heterotic string theory. He is currently Professor of Theoretical High Energy Physics at the University of Pennsylvania.

In string theory, K-theory classification refers to a conjectured application of K-theory to superstrings, to classify the allowed Ramond–Ramond field strengths as well as the charges of stable D-branes.

Igor R. Klebanov is an American theoretical physicist. Since 1989, he has been a faculty member at Princeton University where he is currently a Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics and the director of the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science. In 2016, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Since 2022, he is the director of the Simons Collaboration on Confinement and QCD Strings.

Sze-Hoi Henry Tye is a Chinese-American cosmologist and theoretical physicist most notable for proposing that relative brane motion could cause cosmic inflation as well as his work on superstring theory, brane cosmology and elementary particle physics. He had his primary and secondary school education in Hong Kong. Graduated from La Salle College. He received his B.S. from the California Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under Francis Low. He is the Horace White Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at Cornell University and a fellow of the American Physical Society. He joined the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2011 and was the Director of HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study during 2011-2016.

Faheem Hussain, was a Pakistani theoretical physicist and a professor of physics at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). A research scientist in the field of superstring theory at the National Center for Physics, Hussain made contributions to the fields of superstring and string theory. He was the first Pakistani physicist to publish a research paper in the field of superstring theory. A social activist and democratic activist, he authored various scientific research papers in peer-reviewed journals.

David Tong is a British theoretical physicist. He is a professor at the University of Cambridge, working in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP). He is also a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. His research mainly concerns quantum field theory. He is the joint recipient of the 2008 Adams Prize and is currently a Simons Investigator. He is also known for his outreach activities and for his freely available lecture notes covering a wide range of topics in physics.

Raphael Bousso is a theoretical physicist and cosmologist. He is a professor at the Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics in the Department of Physics, UC Berkeley. He is known for the Bousso bound on the information content of the universe. With Joseph Polchinski, Bousso proposed the string theory landscape as a solution to the cosmological constant problem.

In physics, a tachyonic field, or simply tachyon, is a quantum field with an imaginary mass. Although tachyonic particles are a purely hypothetical concept that violate a number of essential physical principles, at least one field with imaginary mass, the Higgs field, is believed to exist. Under no circumstances do any excitations of tachyonic fields ever propagate faster than light—the presence or absence of a tachyonic (imaginary) mass has no effect on the maximum velocity of signals, and so unlike faster-than-light particles there is no violation of causality. Tachyonic fields play an important role in physics and are discussed in popular books.

Ruth Ann Watson Gregory is a British mathematician and physicist, currently Head of Department of Physics and Professor of Theoretical Physics at King's College London. Her fields of specialisation are general relativity and cosmology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Riccardo Rattazzi</span> Italian theoretical physicist and professor

Riccardo Rattazzi is an Italian theoretical physicist and a professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. His main research interests are in physics beyond the Standard Model and in cosmology.

Veronika E. Hubeny is an American physicist and academic who specialises in string theory and quantum gravity. Since 2015, she has been a professor in the Department of Physics of University of California, Davis. Previously, Hubeny was Professor of Physics at Durham University, where she had worked from 2005 to 2015. From January to April 2014, she was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. In 2019, she was selected as a fellow of the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation.

A. W. Peet is a professor of physics at the University of Toronto. Peet's research interests include string theory as a quantum theory of gravity, quantum field theory and applications of string theory to black holes, gauge theories, cosmology, and the correspondence between anti-de Sitter space and conformal field theories.

While STEM fields all over the world are dominated by men, the number of Pakistani women in 'STEM' is low due to one of the highest gender gaps in STEM fields. However, over the time, some Pakistani women have emerged as scientists in fields like Physics, Biology and computer sciences.

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.