Lisa Randall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lisa Randall at Harvard University |
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Born | June 18, 1962 |
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Residence | USA |
Nationality | American |
Field | Physics |
Institution | Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory University of California, Berkeley Princeton University Massachusetts Institute of Technology Harvard University |
Alma mater | Harvard University |
Academic advisor | Howard Georgi |
Lisa Randall (born 18 June 1962) is a leading theoretical physicist and expert on particle physics, string theory and cosmology. She works on several of the competing models of string theory in the quest to explain the fabric of reality, and was the first tenured woman in the Princeton University physics department and the first tenured female theoretical physicist at MIT and Harvard University. Her work has attracted enormous interest and is among the most cited in all of science.
Randall studies particle physics and cosmology at Harvard University, where she is a professor of theoretical physics. Her research concerns elementary particles and fundamental forces, and has involved the study of a wide variety of models, the most recent involving extra dimensions of space. She has also worked on supersymmetry, Standard Model observables, cosmic inflation, baryogenesis, grand unified theories, general relativity, and string theory. Professor Randall recently completed a book entitled Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions, which was included in the New York Times' 100 notable books of 2005.
Randall earned her PhD from Harvard University and held professorships at MIT and Princeton University before returning to Harvard in 2001. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the American Physical Society, and is a past winner of an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship, a National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award, a DOE Outstanding Junior Investigator Award, and the Westinghouse Science Talent Search. In 2003, she received the Premio Caterina Tomassoni e Felice Pietro Chisesi Award, from the University of Rome, La Sapienza. In autumn, 2004, she was the most cited theoretical physicist of the previous five years. In 2006, she received the Klopsted Award from the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT). Prof Randall was featured in Seed Magazine's “2005 Year in Science Icons ” and in Newsweek 's “Who's Next in 2006”. She has helped organize numerous conferences and has been on the editorial board of several major theoretical physics journals.
Randall is an alumna of Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics and graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1980, where she was a classmate of fellow physicist and science popularizer Brian Greene. Randall earned a BA from Harvard in 1983, and obtained her Ph.D. in particle physics in 1987 under the direction of Howard Georgi. Georgi considers her his all-time best student[citation needed]. She was made a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004. Randall was featured in Newsweek magazine's "Who's Next" issue of January 2, 2006, as "one of the most promising theoretical physicists of her generation."
Randall's sister, Dana Randall, is a professor of computer science at Georgia Tech.
Dr. Randall was the subject of The Discover Interview (pgs. 50-53) in the July 2006 issue.
[edit] Bibliography
- Randall, Lisa (2005). Warped Passages: Unraveling the Universe's Hidden Dimensions. Ecco. ISBN 0-06-053108-8.
[edit] External links
- Radio Interview from This Week in Science May 09, 2006 Broadcast