School of Natural Sciences

Six of the 2024 Breakthrough Prize winners––John Lawrence Cardy, Simon Brendle, Roland Bauerschmidt, Mikhail M. Ivanov, Marko Simonović, and Oliver Philcox––have past affiliations with the Institute's Schools of Mathematics and Natural Sciences.

All four of this year’s winners of the Dirac Medal––Jeffrey Harvey, Igor Klebanov, Stephen Shenker, and Leonard Susskind––are past Members in the School of Natural Sciences.

Prospects in Theoretical Physics (PiTP), an intensive two-week summer program for advanced graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, took place from July 10–21 this year, the first meeting since COVID-19 struck in 2020.

Professor Emeritus Edward Witten, renowned physicist in the School of Natural Sciences, has been awarded the Hamburg Prize for Theoretical Physics. He is recognized “for his groundbreaking contributions to a unified mathematical description of fundamental forces of nature.”

Four current IAS scholars in the School of Natural Sciences—Mikhail M. Ivanov, NASA Einstein Fellow; Giovanni Cabass, Bezos Member; Kazuyuki Akitsu, Member; and Oliver Philcox, a visiting graduate student—have published a paper linking invisible dark matter and "the cosmic web."

Karen Uhlenbeck, current Distinguished Visiting Professor in the School of Mathematics, has been elected to the Royal Society for her “substantial contribution to the advancement of science.”

IAS archivist Caitlin Rizzo outlines research conducted into Thayyoor K. Radha, one of the earliest women of color at the Institute. Although her history has been difficult to trace, Radha's career was marked by incredible success. The new research demonstrates how even some of the least-known Members play a critical part of the intellectual ecosystem of the Institute. 

Akshay Venkatesh, Robert & Luisa Fernholz Professor in the School of Mathematics, has been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors in recognition of advancements in original research. 

New research published by Lev Arzamasskiy, current Member in the School of Natural Sciences, and his collaborators, which include past Member (1999–2001) and Visitor (2005) Eliot Quatert, has provided "invaluable" insights into the basic plasma physics that occurs in astrophysical systems.

In 2014, Nathan Seiberg, Charles Simonyi Professor in the School of Natural Sciences, "demonstrated that the most important symmetries of 20th-century physics could be extended more broadly to apply in quantum field theory, the basic theoretical framework in which physicists work today."