School of Natural Sciences

Edward Witten, Professor Emeritus in the School of Natural Sciences, has been announced as an honorary fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, a distinction conferred upon select notable individuals for their "expertise and experience, and their research and knowledge leadership." Witten was recognized for his "profound contributions to contemporary physics." 

Francesca Trivellato, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the School of Historical Studies, has been elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, joining nearly 250 honorees recognized for their expertise and leadership. A number of other Institute-affiliated scholars, representing all four IAS Schools, were also elected.

Itai Linial, Member (2022–23); Shi-Fan Chen, Member (2022–25); and Nadine Soliman, Member (2025–30), all from the School of Natural Sciences, have received 2025 Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowships from NASA. The trio will join an “outstanding” class of fellows to address questions such as “How does the universe work?” and “How did we get here?”

Yue Hu, NASA Hubble Fellow in the School of Natural Sciences, has been announced as one of the recipients of the 2025 Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Doctoral Dissertation Award in Astrophysics. Hu's thesis was praised for opening "new ways of exploring the properties of astrophysical turbulent magnetic fields."

Four of the six recipients of the International Congress of Basic Science's 2025 Basic Science Lifetime Award are past IAS scholars: Shigefumi Mori, George Lusztig, and Robert Tarjan from the School of Mathematics and David Gross from the School of Natural Sciences. The award is bestowed upon “extraordinary” scientists in their respective fields.

Chris Hamilton, John N. Bahcall Fellow in the School of Natural Sciences, has been recognized in the 2024 Early Career Collection of the Physics of Plasmas journal for his “outstanding” paper on stellar systems and kinetic theory, a prestigious accomplishment for emerging physics scholars.

This month, an effort to unite three astrophysical research communities who exploit common techniques to understand waves in gaseous disks, galaxies, and stars was made by three scholars from the School of Natural Sciences. John N. Bahcall Fellow Chris Hamilton and Members Callum W. Fairbairn and Uddipan Banik organized a workshop titled IAStrophysical Waves, at which over thirty astrophysicists from across the globe were in attendance.