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

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

Early life and education

Cumrun Vafa was born in

Tehran Tehran (; , ''Tehrân'') is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is the capital of Tehran province, and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District (Tehran County), Central District. With a population of around 9. ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

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

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

and

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, 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 whi ...

from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

(MIT) in 1981. He received his Ph.D. in physics from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

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 theoretical physics, theoretical physicist known for his contributions to string theory, topological quantum field theory, and various areas of mathematics. He is a professor emeritus in the sc ...

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) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

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

Research

Vafa's research is primarily in

string theory 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 intera ...

, and is focused on the nature of

quantum gravity Quantum gravity (QG) is a field of theoretical physics that seeks to describe gravity according to the principles of quantum mechanics. It deals with environments in which neither gravitational nor quantum effects can be ignored, such as in the v ...

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

soliton In mathematics and physics, a soliton is a nonlinear, self-reinforcing, localized wave packet that is , in that it preserves its shape while propagating freely, at constant velocity, and recovers it even after collisions with other such local ...

ic 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 In theoretical physics, F-theory is a branch of string theory developed by Iranian-American physicist Cumrun Vafa. The new vacua described by F-theory were discovered by Vafa and allowed string theorists to construct new realistic vacua — in ...

, 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 a coefficient that Albert Einstein initially added to his field equations of general rel ...

problem. He has made contributions to topological string theories and to the understanding of mirror symmetry. 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. (19 ...

, jointly won the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics 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, which was won alongside Juan Maldacena, and

for their advancement of string theory. In 1998 he was a Plenary Speaker at the

International Congress of Mathematicians The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The Fields Medals, the IMU Abacus Medal (known before ...

. 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 201 ...

. Vafa was elected as a member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) 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, and other ...

in 2005 and as a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

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, 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 21st-century 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 Scientists from Tehran Hollis Chair of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy