Cumrun Vafa ( fa, کامران وفا ; born 1 August 1960) is an Iranian-American theoretical physicist and the Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

Early life and education

Cumrun Vafa was born in

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

on 1 August 1960. He became interested in physics as a young child, specifically how the moon was not falling from the sky, and he later grew his interests in math by high school and was fascinated by how mathematics could predict the movement of objects. He graduated from

Alborz High School Mandegar Alborz High School ( fa, دبیرستان ماندگار البرز) is a college-preparatory high school located in the heart of Tehran, Iran. It is one of the first modern high schools in Asia and the Middle East, named after the Alborz ...

in Tehran and moved to the United States in 1977 for study at university. He received a

B.S. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...

in mathematics and

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

(MIT) in 1981. He received his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in physics from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

in 1985 after completing a doctoral dissertation, titled "Symmetries, inequalities and index theorems", under the supervision of

Edward Witten Edward Witten (born August 26, 1951) is an American mathematical and theoretical physicist. He is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Witten is a researcher in string theory, q ...

Academia

After his PhD degree, Vafa became a junior fellow via the Harvard Society of Fellows at

, where he later got a junior faculty position. In 1989 he was offered a senior faculty position, and he has been there ever since. Vafa worked at Princeton University within the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent schola ...

, within the School of Natural Sciences and the School of Mathematics in 1994.

Research

Vafa's research in string theory is focused on the nature of quantum gravity and the relation between geometry and quantum field theories. He is known in the string theory community for his co-discovery with Strominger that the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of a black hole can be accounted for by solitonic states of superstring theory, and for expounding the relation between geometry and field theories that arise through string dualities (culminating in the Gopakumar–Vafa conjecture). This topic has been known as "geometric engineering of quantum field theories". In 1997, he developed F-theory, a 12-dimensional theory that compactifies to 10-D Type IIB superstring theory. He is also interested in understanding the underlying meaning of string dualities, as well as trying to apply superstring theory to some unsolved questions of elementary particle physics such as the hierarchy problem and the

cosmological constant In cosmology, the cosmological constant (usually denoted by the Greek capital letter lambda: ), alternatively called Einstein's cosmological constant, is the constant coefficient of a term that Albert Einstein temporarily added to his field eq ...

problem. He has made contributions to topological string theories and to the understanding of

mirror symmetry In mathematics, reflection symmetry, line symmetry, mirror symmetry, or mirror-image symmetry is symmetry with respect to a reflection. That is, a figure which does not change upon undergoing a reflection has reflectional symmetry. In 2D ther ...

. He is a trustee of Network of Iranians for Knowledge and Innovation (NIKI).

Awards and honors

In 2017, Vafa, alongside

Andrew Strominger Andrew Eben Strominger (; born 1955) is an American theoretical physicist who is the director of Harvard's Center for the Fundamental Laws of Nature. He has made significant contributions to quantum gravity and string theory. These include his ...

and

Joseph Polchinski Joseph Gerard Polchinski Jr. (; May 16, 1954 – February 2, 2018) was an American theoretical physicist and string theorist. Biography Polchinski was born in White Plains, New York, the elder of two children to Joseph Gerard Polchinski Sr. (1929 ...

, jointly won the

Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics is one of the Breakthrough Prizes, awarded by the Breakthrough Prize Board. Initially named Fundamental Physics Prize, it was founded in July 2012 by Russia-born Israeli entrepreneur, venture cap ...

for their advancement of string theory and jointly won the 2014 Breakthrough Prize in Physics Frontiers Prize. He is the recipient of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP)'s, 2008

Dirac Medal The Dirac Medal is the name of four awards in the field of theoretical physics, computational chemistry, and mathematics, awarded by different organizations, named in honour of Professor Paul Dirac, one of the great theoretical physicists of the 20 ...

, which was won alongside

Juan Maldacena Juan Martín Maldacena (born September 10, 1968) is an Argentine theoretical physicist and the Carl P. Feinberg Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He has made significant contributions to t ...

, and

for their advancement of string theory. In 1998 he was a Plenary Speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians. In 2016, Vafa was awarded the

Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics is an award given each year since 1959 jointly by the American Physical Society and American Institute of Physics. It is established by the Heineman Foundation in honour of Dannie Heineman. As of 20 ...

. Vafa was elected as a member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

in 2005 and as a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2009. In 2021, Vafa was awarded th
Mustafa Prize

Publications

Research articles

Vafa has co-authored and published more than 300 research articles in the fields of string theory, mathematics, and physics, with many other researchers including:

Robbert Dijkgraaf Robertus Henricus "Robbert" Dijkgraaf FRSE (Dutch: born 24 January 1960) is a Dutch theoretical physicist, mathematician and string theorist, and the current Minister of Education, Culture and Science in the Netherlands. From July 2012 unti ...

, Hirosi Ooguri, Mina Aganagic, Sergei Gukov, Rajesh Gopakumar, Lotte Hollands, and many others. This is a select list of these works: * * * *Dixon, L; Harvey, JA; Vafa, C; Witten, E
"Strings on orbifolds"
. ''Nuclear Physics''. *

Books

* * *

References

External links

Harvard University faculty webpage
* Video
Cumrun Vafa: 2017 Breakthrough Prize Laureate Interview
(2018) via YouTube * Video
Cumrun Vafa: String Theory. Lex Fridman Podcast #204
(2021) via YouTube {{DEFAULTSORT:Vafa, Cumrun 1960 births Alborz High School alumni 21st-century American physicists Harvard University faculty Iranian physicists American people of Iranian descent Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni Princeton University alumni American string theorists Fellows of the American Physical Society Theoretical physicists Living people Iranian expatriate academics People from Tehran MIT Department of Physics alumni