David Elazzar Kaplan is a theoretical

particle physicist Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) and b ...

at the

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consiste ...

Biography

Kaplan received his Bachelor of Science from the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...

in 1991, his master's in physics from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seat ...

in 1996 and

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper ''Piled Higher and Deeper'' (also known as ''PhD Comics''), is a newsp ...

from the same institute under supervision of

Ann Nelson Ann Elizabeth Nelson (April 29, 1958 – August 4, 2019) 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 200 ...

in 1999. After postdoctoral positions at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

Argonne National Lab Argonne National Laboratory is a science and engineering research national laboratory operated by UChicago Argonne LLC for the United States Department of Energy. The facility is located in Lemont, Illinois, outside of Chicago, and is the larg ...

and in the

SLAC Theory Group The SLAC Theory Group is the hub of theoretical particle physics research at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University. It is a subdivision of the Elementary Particle Physics (EPP) Division at SLAC. Research The group h ...

, he joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins in 2002. His primary research interest is physics beyond the standard model, with a particular focus on the

Higgs mechanism In the Standard Model of particle physics, the Higgs mechanism is essential to explain the generation mechanism of the property "mass" for gauge bosons. Without the Higgs mechanism, all bosons (one of the two classes of particles, the other bei ...

and potentially related physics such as

supersymmetry In a supersymmetric theory the equations for force and the equations for matter are identical. In theoretical and mathematical physics, any theory with this property has the principle of supersymmetry (SUSY). Dozens of supersymmetric theories e ...

, new forces,

extra dimensions In physics, extra dimensions are proposed additional space or time dimensions beyond the (3 + 1) typical of observed spacetime, such as the first attempts based on the Kaluza–Klein theory. Among theories proposing extra dimensions are: ...

, and

dark matter Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe. Dark matter is called "dark" because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means it does not ab ...

. He is also exploring connections between

high energy physics Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) and b ...

and

cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosophe ...

. He was selected as a Kavli Frontiers Fellow of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, 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 Nat ...

, and an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow. In 2011, Kaplan co-hosted season three of

National Geographic Channel National Geographic (formerly National Geographic Channel; abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo or Nat Geo TV) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by the National Geographic Global Networks unit of Disney General ...

's ''Known Universe'' documentary series along with

Sigrid Close Sigrid Close (born 1971) is a professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University. Her primary research interest is the space environment with particular focus on meteoroids, meteors, and orbital debris, and their i ...

, Andy Howell,

Michael J. Massimino Michael James Massimino (born August 19, 1962) is an American professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University and a former NASA astronaut. He is the senior advisor of space programs at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. Early li ...

, and Steve Jacobs. Kaplan also produced (and starred in) the documentary ''

Particle Fever ''Particle Fever'' is a 2013 American documentary film tracking the first round of experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland. The film follows the experimental physicists at the European Organization for Nuclear Res ...

''.

Honors and awards

*2018

Andrew Gemant Award The Andrew Gemant Award is a prize awarded by the American Institute of Physics to a person who has made substantial cultural, artistic, or humanistic contributions to physics. The award is named after Andrew Gemant, a pioneer in materials scien ...

of the

American Institute of Physics The American Institute of Physics (AIP) promotes science and the profession of physics, publishes physics journals, and produces publications for scientific and engineering societies. The AIP is made up of various member societies. Its corpora ...

Notes

References

* * * *

External links

Faculty directory page at the Johns Hopkins University
*
Oral History Interview of David E. Kaplan by David Zierler on July 13, 2020, Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics
21st-century American physicists Year of birth missing (living people) Johns Hopkins University faculty Living people American particle physicists Place of birth missing (living people) Fellows of the American Physical Society {{US-physicist-stub Jewish American physicists