News

Patrick Geary, Emeritus Professor in the School of Historical Studies, together with Hungarian, Austrian, and German research groups, has published a paper in Nature, revealing the social dynamics of Avar-period steppe descent populations that settled in Europe's Carpathian Basin in the 6th century.

Avi Wigderson, Herbert H. Maass Professor in the School of Mathematics, was named by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) as the recipient of the 2023 ACM A.M. Turing Award, often referred to as the "Nobel Prize of Computing."

A new image from the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration, which includes George Wong, Frank and Peggy Taplin Member in the School of Natural Sciences, has uncovered strong and organized magnetic fields spiraling from the edge of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. 

In a paper published today in Nature, Sihao Cheng, Martin A. and Helen Chooljian Member in the Institute’s School of Natural Sciences, and his collaborators have proposed a new theory that explains why a puzzling population of white dwarf stars stopped cooling for ten billion years. 

The new AI Democracy Projects, co-founded by Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science, engaged state and local election officials, journalists, and AI and election experts in some of the first testing and publicly available results of leading AI models’ safety regarding election information.

How has past climate variability contributed to human migrations and other forms of population movement? Nicola Di Cosmo, Luce Foundation Professor in East Asian Studies, is part of an interdisciplinary group, including historians, climatologists, and archeologists, that has developed a new tool, the “dahliagram,” to explore this question.

George Wong, Frank and Peggy Taplin Member in the School of Natural Sciences, and astrophysicists from Princeton University and Vanderbilt University have determined conclusively that energy close to the event horizon of M87’s central black hole is pushing outward, not inward—as one would normally assume with black holes.

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded a Synergy Grant of €10 million to a project led by Nima Arkani- Hamed, Professor in the School of Natural Sciences, and past IAS Members. The team aims to create a new mathematical language to describe physical phenomena on all scales.

The Institute for Advanced Study has appointed neuroscientist Eve Marder to its Board of Trustees. Nominated by the Institute’s School of Natural Sciences, she succeeds Ewine F. van Dishoeck as Academic Trustee. Her appointment was unanimously adopted by the Board on May 6, 2023.

This year, the Institute's international community hails from 47 countries, representing 105 institutions worldwide. Visiting scholars range from postdocs to distinguished professors, united across disciplines by a common cause to push the boundaries of knowledge and pursue their own curiosity.

Maria Hsiuya Loh, an internationally recognized expert in the field of early modern Italian art, has joined the Institute for Advanced Study as Professor in the School of Historical Studies. Loh is best known for her work on Venetian art of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The IAS Board of Trustees has elected John Overdeck as its next Chair. Overdeck, a philanthropist, business leader, and dedicated supporter of the Institute, will succeed software entrepreneur Charles Simonyi, who served as Chair since 2008.

Lia Medeiros, current Member in the School of Natural Sciences, has led a group of researchers from the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration in producing a groundbreaking new image of the M87 black hole, using machine learning algorithm PRIMO to achieve the full resolution of the array for the first time.

Measuring the mass of a galaxy cluster is difficult—clusters cannot be “weighed” by placing them on a scale. Digvijay Wadekar, current Member in the School of Natural Sciences, has worked to develop an AI program to identify new variables that might make inferring the mass from other observable quantities more accurate.

Salvatore Torquato, past Member in the School of Natural Sciences, and his IAS collaborator Oliver Philcox have applied methodologies from materials science in a cosmological context, providing new insights into the fundamental structure of the universe. Their work is now published in Physical Review X.

The Institute for Advanced Study has appointed Alexandra Day as its first Associate Director for Strategic Initiatives, Programming, and Partnerships. Day, who has extended the reach and engagement of some of the nation’s leading educational and cultural institutions, will begin at IAS on February 15, 2023.

A research team, led by current Visitor Roman Rafikov, has developed a technique to study planet formation in other solar systems. By analyzing the vortices that form within discs of gas and dust around young stars, limits can be placed on the mass and age of planets of various sizes.

The Rubenstein Commons building at IAS has opened its doors, providing a nexus of flexible gathering spaces to support enhanced communication and collaboration among scholars, and forming an inviting social hub for the wider IAS community.

Neutron stars are one of the densest objects found anywhere in the Universe. Scientists still do not understand what exactly they are made from. A new piece of the puzzle, constraining the range of possibilities, has been discovered by a pair of scholars at IAS.

The Institute for Advanced Study is delighted to announce the establishment of the Frank C. and Florence S. Ogg Professorship in the School of Mathematics, thanks to the generosity of former Mathematics Member (1968–69), Andrew Ogg.

The 2022–23 academic year sees new Director and Leon Levy Professor David Nirenberg welcome new and returning Members from 36 countries, representing approximately 107 academic institutions worldwide.

Wei Ho, Visiting Professor in the School of Mathematics, has been named as the first Director of the "Women and Mathematics" (WAM) program at IAS. During her five-year appointment she will lead the annual, award-winning program, which has the mission to recruit and retain more women in mathematics. 

Not everything needs to be seen to be believed; certain things are more readily heard, like a train approaching its station. In a recent paper, published in Physical Review Letters, researchers have put their ears to the rail, discovering a new...

The Institute for Advanced Study has appointed Stephen Ackley-Ortiz as its new Chief Development Officer. He begins at IAS on August 8, 2022.

The Institute for Advanced Study has appointed Wendell Weeks (Chairman and CEO, Corning Incorporated) and Gigliola Staffilani (Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor, MIT) to its Board of Trustees.

Bhargav Bhatt, an internationally renowned expert in arithmetic algebraic geometry and commutative algebra, has joined the Institute for Advanced Study as Fernholz Joint Professor in the School of Mathematics.

Astronomers have unveiled the first image of the supermassive black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. This result provides overwhelming evidence that the object is indeed a black hole and yields valuable clues about the workings of such giants...

Update (06/17/2022): This research is now published in Astrophysical Journal Letters and can be accessed here.

Looks can be deceiving. The light from an incandescent bulb seems steady, but it flickers 120 times per second. Because the brain only perceives an average of the information it receives, this flickering is blurred and the perception of constant illumination is a mere illusion.

The Institute is proud to announce the creation of the Gopal Prasad Professorship in recognition of prolific mathematician and six-time Member of IAS, Gopal Prasad. The professorship, endowed with a gift from the Prasad family, ensures that future...

The Institute for Advanced Study is pleased to announce the establishment of the Albers-Schönberg Professorship in the History of Science in the School of Historical Studies.

“The Albers-Schönberg name is illustrious in the history of science, with important contributions across three generations of scholars and researchers. It is an honor to have it now permanently connected to the Institute. And it is for me a joy and a privilege, in one of my first announcements as IAS Director, to express the Institute’s gratitude for this visionary gift,” remarked David Nirenberg, IAS Director and Leon Levy Professor.

Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, has been appointed by President Joe Biden to perform the duties of director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and as Deputy Assistant to the President.

The Institute for Advanced Study has named Carl P. Feinberg—entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist—to its Board of Trustees effective October 30, 2021.

*Update (01/14/22): David Nirenberg to become IAS Director on February 1, 2022

The Institute for Advanced Study has appointed David Nirenberg as its 10th Director and Leon Levy Professor, effective July 1, 2022*. Currently dean of the Divinity School at the University of Chicago and professor of medieval history, Nirenberg will assume leadership of one of the world’s preeminent centers for theoretical research in the sciences and humanities.

Redaptive, a leader in portfolio-scale energy solutions, today announced its partnership with the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), one of the world's leading postdoctoral research centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. Together, Redaptive and IAS will greatly reduce energy consumption on the Institute’s 800-acre Princeton, New Jersey campus while achieving $10.1 million in energy and infrastructure savings for the organization.

The Institute for Advanced Study begins its 2021–22 academic year with a continuation of in-person activities. The Institute plans to welcome 271 new and returning scholars and scientists to campus, representing 114 academic institutions and hailing from 38 countries.

Wendy L. Brown has joined IAS as the UPS Foundation Professor in the School of Social Science. Brown’s foundational insights into neoliberalism, authoritarianism, feminism, sovereignty, progress, and tolerance, among other signature concepts, have revolutionized understandings of democracy and the modern powers that challenge it.

The most accurate distance measurement yet of ultra-diffuse galaxy (UDG) NGC1052-DF2 (DF2) confirms beyond any shadow of a doubt that it is lacking in dark matter. The newly measured distance of 22.1 +/-1.2 megaparsecs was obtained by an international team of researchers led by Zili Shen and Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University and Shany Danieli, a NASA Hubble Fellow at the Institute.

The Institute for Advanced Study’s Women and Mathematics Program (WAM) will take place virtually May 22–28, 2021, with a total of 66 participants from around the world. This year’s theme is “Representation Theory: Categories and Combinatorics.”

Hailing from the worlds of social theory, economics, internet technology, and comparative literature, these new Trustees bring diverse perspectives and the promise of unique synergies to the operations of the Board.

Avi Wigderson of the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) was named a recipient of the 2021 Abel Prize, which he shares jointly with László Lovász—a former IAS visiting professor—of Eötvös Loránd University. They are cited by the Abel Committee “for...