News

Ellie M. Hisama, Edward T. Cone Member in Music Studies in the School of Historical Studies, has been presented with an honorary membership of the American Musicological Society (AMS). Considered to be the Society's highest honor, such memberships are presented to scholars who have made "extraordinary contributions to the Society and to the study and teaching of music."

On November 11, 2024, Avi Wigderson, Herbert H. Maass Professor in the School of Mathematics, was officially presented with an honorary doctorate from the Weizmann Institute of Science. Wigderson was recognized for "his pioneering contributions to mathematics and computer science, which have opened new horizons in both fields, and at the interface between them."

A number of past and present IAS scholars, including Akshay Venkatesh, Robert and Luisa Fernholz Professor in the School of Mathematics, and Ellen Eischen, von Neumann Fellow in the School, have been appointed to the 2025 Class of American Mathematical Society (AMS) Fellows. 

Wendy Brown, UPS Foundation Professor in the School of Social Science, has been announced as the recipient of Södertörn University’s honorary doctorate for 2025. The citation praises Brown for providing "scholars and students in the humanities and social sciences with an invaluable resource for understanding current events and formulating alternatives."

Frank and Peggy Taplin Member George N. Wong, Visitor Lia Medeiros, and Professor James Stone, all from the Institute's School of Natural Sciences, have developed an innovative technique to search for black hole light echoes. Their novel method, which will make it easier for the mass and the spin of black holes to be measured, represents a major step forward, since it operates independently of many of the other ways in which scientists have probed these parameters in the past.

Pauline Yu, Director's Visitor (2014), Trustee of the Institute for Advanced Study, and prominent scholar of Chinese literature, was officially presented with a 2022 National Humanities Medal by President Joe Biden in a private ceremony held at the White House on Monday, October 21, 2024.

The Institute for Advanced Study has made two new appointments to its Board of Trustees: Paul DiMaggio, a Professor of Sociology at New York University, and Anoop Prasad, Managing Director and member of the Executive Committee of D. E. Shaw & Co. Their appointments were unanimously adopted by the Board on October 26, 2024.

John J. Hopfield, Visiting Professor (2010–13) in the School of Natural Sciences, was named a recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.” He remains active within the Institute’s Simons Center for Systems Biology, which concentrates on research at the interface of molecular biology and the physical sciences.

The Institute for Advanced Study commenced its 2024–25 academic year on September 23, 2024, welcoming scholars from around the globe to its storied campus. The 267 visiting scholars, who began arriving earlier in the month, represent 35 nations and more than 130 institutions. Each is selected by the Institute’s permanent Faculty based on the promise of their research, spanning the sciences and humanities.

Two past Members of the Institute's School of Social Science have been named as 2024 MacArthur Fellows: Ruha Benjamin (2016–17) and Jennifer L. Morgan (2014–15). They join the prestigious ranks of "genius grant" recipients, recognized for their groundbreaking work and potential to make significant societal impacts.

Amalie "Emmy" Noether, a renowned mathematician and frequent IAS Visitor (1933–35) while working at Bryn Mawr College, has been posthumously recognized as a "Legacy Honoree" by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (AAA&S). She was nominated by Helmut Hofer, Hermann Weyl Professor in the School of Mathematics, who described her as "a great mathematician and human being."

Didier Fassin, James D. Wolfensohn Professor in the School of Social Science, has received the Huxley Memorial Medal from the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, the highest British distinction in anthropology. He was recognized "for his outstanding contribution and conceptual leadership" in medical anthropology, the anthropology of the state, and humanitarian and critical moral anthropology.

In an opinion piece for The Washington Post, Brian Greene, Member (1992–93) in the Schools of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, argues that scholars should continue exploring string theory, even in the absence of experimental verification.

Geordie Williamson, Distinguished Visiting Professor (2020–21) in the School of Mathematics, has been announced as the recipient of the 2024 Max Planck–Humboldt Research Award. 

Rubina Raja, Member (2019) in the School of Historical Studies, has received one of the Carlsberg Foundation’s Research Prizes for 2024. She was honored, in part, for work conducted at the ancient city of Palmyra, Syria. 

Join the Institute for Advanced Study, one of the world’s leading centers for foundational research, for the 2025–26 academic year. Accepted scholars, drawn from around the world, will be able to pursue their own research within one of the four IAS Schools: Historical Studies, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Social Science. Funding is available.

In August, 157 participants from 10 countries gathered at the Institute for the initial focus weeks of a workshop on Quantum Information and Physics. The workshop, which will continue through October 31, 2024, considers the relation of quantum complexity to physical systems such as many-body problems in quantum simulators, condensed matter physics, quantum field theory, and quantum gravity.

Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science, spoke with MIT Science Policy Review about the role of scientists and the broader public in shaping policy. She discussed the various ways in which scientists can participate in policymaking and the importance of and challenges that surround public access to science.

A new study of ancient DNA by a team of international researchers, including Patrick Geary, Professor Emeritus in the Institute for Advanced Study’s School of Historical Studies, provides insight into the development of and social structures within European rural communities following the fall of the Roman Empire. Some of these communities, about the formation of which little was previously known, would eventually become the basis for many modern European countries.

In July, 184 participants from 17 countries travelled to Park City, Utah to attend the latest iteration of Park City Mathematics Institute (PCMI), an annual Institute for Advanced Study outreach program. The attendees explored motivic homotopy theory, which offers mathematicians the opportunity to better understand complex algebraic shapes by using flexible tools from homotopy theory.

Tsung-Dao Lee (李政道), Member (1951–53, 1957–58) and Faculty (1960–62) in the Institute’s School of Mathematics/Natural Sciences, died on August 4. During his time at IAS, Lee was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics alongside his Institute colleague Chen-Ning Yang (楊振寧) for revolutionary work on parity violation which fundamentally changed our understanding of the laws of physics.

From July 8–26, the annual Prospects in Theoretical Physics (PiTP) program, an intensive workshop for advanced graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, took place at IAS. This year, the program brought together 213 participants from over 20 countries to discuss ultra-quantum matter.

The field-shaping work of Caroline Walker Bynum, Professor Emerita in the School of Historical Studies, and her significant impact on historical scholarship well beyond her areas of specialization, has been celebrated in a symposium published in a recent issue of the journal Common Knowledge.

In the journal Sociologica, Professor Emerita Joan Wallach Scott has written an essay on The Interpretation of Cultures, published in 1973, by Clifford Geertz, the first and founding Professor in the School of Social Science (1970–2000, Emeritus 2000–06).

Designed to facilitate work on projects and topics that are beyond the reach of a single scholar, discipline, or institution, the Jonathan M. Nelson Center for Collaborative Research has been launched at IAS, expanding the Institute's capacity for discovery across fields. The Center will provide the funding, space, infrastructure, and expertise for collaborative projects with partners across the globe. 

This June, around 230 physicists and mathematicians gathered at IAS to discuss the latest developments in the field of scattering amplitudes. The roots of the Amplitudes conference, held annually since 2009, can be found in seminal papers by Edward Witten, Professor Emeritus in the School of Natural Sciences, and his collaborators.

An exhibition currently on display in the Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center celebrates how—from the Institute’s founding in 1930 to today—IAS scholars have brought that which is known into conversation with that which is newly discovered to meet the challenges of the present moment.

Edward Witten, Professor Emeritus in the School of Natural Sciences, has received the Basic Science Lifetime Award in Theoretical Physics from the International Congress of Basic Science, which is presented to scientists who have brought about fundamental change in their disciplines. 

Described as "one of the most distinguished theoretical physicists of our time," IAS Trustee Emeritus Martin Rees has been announced as the winner of the 2024 Wolf Prize in Physics. Also recognized with a 2024 Wolf Prize in Mathematics was Noga Alon, a frequent Visiting Professor in the School of Mathematics. 

At a ceremony held in Berlin last week, Penelope Deutscher, Member in the School of Social Science, was officially presented with a Research Award ("Humboldt-Forschungspreis") by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Deutscher's award will support a project titled "Revocability: A Post-Roe Grammar of Power," which was developed at the Institute.

Daniela V. Gabor, Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., and Annette L. Nazareth Member in the School of Social Science, argues that the U.K. Labour party will aim to "rebuild the infrastructure that is crumbling after years of Tory underinvestment" by turning to private investment companies. She contends that this "will generate windfalls for investors and leave the rest of us worse off."

Irit Dveer Dinur, Elon Lindenstrauss, and Aaron Naber have been appointed to the Institute Faculty, bringing unique expertise in pure mathematics and computer science to the School of Mathematics. They will begin their Institute appointments this summer. Considered one of the top honors in academia, IAS Faculty appointments are reserved for the world’s foremost leaders in their respective fields.

Why are some stars brighter than others? Why are some redder or bluer? A plot from a recent research paper by Hsiang-Chih Hwang, Member in the School of Natural Sciences, which addresses this question, has been selected as the Gaia Space Telescope's Image of the Week.

Writing for The Guardian, Didier Fassin, James D. Wolfensohn Professor in the School of Social Science, argues that a "hazardous strategy" by President Emmanuel Macron has facilitated an evolution of the whole political spectrum to the right.

"As gig work grows ever more prevalent, critics have voiced major issues with these jobs, from their lack of labor protections to income instability and more. But if gig work is so bad, why do so many people do it?" In a piece for the Harvard Business Review, Lindsey D. Cameron, Member in the School of Social Science, reflects on the seven years that she spent conducting a wide-ranging study of the ins and outs of ride-hail work.

Scott Tremaine, Professor Emeritus in the School of Natural Sciences, has received an honorary doctorate from the University of Waterloo in recognition of numerous seminal contributions to the field of astrophysics, notably "establishing the theory that supermassive black holes are at the core of galaxies."

Sara Seager, Long-Term Member (1999–2002) in the School of Natural Sciences, has been announced as one of the winners of the 2024 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics. Seager was presented with the award for "ground-breaking work" on the discovery and characterization of exoplanets and their atmospheres.

Sebastian Mizera, Member in the School of Natural Sciences, and his collaborators, have used computational algebraic geometry to study predictions for particle physics experiments, such as those at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The team’s results were published in Physical Review Letters in March. 

From May 19–24, the Institute welcomed 40 students, educators, and researchers from across the globe for its annual Women+ and Mathematics (W+AM) program. As well as providing a glimpse into the Langlands program, this year's lectures discussed examples and applications of Deligne-Lusztig theory.

At a workshop held at IAS in March, Sebastian Mizera, Member in the School of Natural Sciences, "met with fellow S-matrix enthusiasts. Inspired by recent progress, they continue to seek more universal rules that govern all S-matrices. [...] They focus on observations, striving to discover truths that will endure even when the shape of future theories remains uncertain."

The 2024 Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences has been awarded to Peter Sarnak, Gopal Prasad Professor in the School of Mathematics, for his "development of the arithmetic theory of thin groups and the affine sieve, by bringing together number theory, analysis, combinatorics, dynamics, geometry, and spectral theory."

Past Members from the School of Social Science have edited a special issue of Public Culture titled "Science and the State." The papers arise from the 2020–21 theme seminar of the same name, led by Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor in the School, and Visiting Professor Charis Thompson.

IAS Director and Leon Levy Professor David Nirenberg, School of Social Science Visitor Michèle Lamont (1997), and IAS Academic Trustee Eve Marder have been elected to the American Philosophical Society (APS), one of the oldest learned societies in the U.S.

Uddipan Banik, Member in the School of Natural Sciences, has received the Dirk Brouwer Memorial Prize for his Ph.D. thesis, titled "Pushing the Frontiers of Non-Equilibrium Dynamics of Collisionless and Weakly Collisional Self-Gravitating Systems." 

Jim Simons, former IAS Member (1972), Trustee (2001–18), and Board Vice Chair (2010–18), "led a life driven by curiosity." A tribute posted on the Simons Foundation website honors his achievements in mathematics, business, and philanthropy.

James H. Simons, former IAS Member (1972) and Board Vice Chair, widely recognized as a prize-winning mathematician, singular hedge fund manager, and a visionary philanthropist—with an indefatigable curiosity for science and discovery—died on Friday, May 10. He was 86.

The Institute for Advanced Study will restore and expand its Historical Studies - Social Science Library, providing enhanced space and support for its scholars, while fostering discovery at the intersection of traditional fields and exploration in emerging disciplines.

"In 1940, André Weil [Faculty (1958–76) and Emeritus (1976–98) in the School of Mathematics] wrote a letter to his sister, Simone, outlining his vision for translating between three distinct areas of mathematics. Eighty years later, it still animates many of the most exciting developments in the field."

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.

In the School of Mathematics, Robert & Luisa Fernholz Professor Akshay Venkatesh and IBM von Neumann Professor Camillo De Lellis have been elected as Members of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (AAA&S).

The 2024 IAS Public Policy Lecture saw Margrethe Vestager, the Executive Vice President of the European Commission for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age, discuss lessons that can be drawn from the life and legacy of past Director J. Robert Oppenheimer (1947–66) in the age of large digital platforms and artificial intelligence.

Julia Ticona, Member in the School of Social Science, has been awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for the research project, “Imagining AI in organized labor: Struggles over the value of cultural work,” which she co-directs with Caitlin Petre of Rutgers University.

In an article for Quanta, Isabel Garcia Garcia, past Member in the School of Natural Sciences (2022–23), discusses the latent possibilities of LISA, the first dedicated space-based gravitational wave observatory, currently scheduled to launch in the 2030s.

Agustin Moreno, past Member in the School of Mathematics (2021–23), in collaboration with an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has devised new tools for cataloging space orbits using symplectic geometry, helping to reunite two fields which have long since been growing apart. 

A research team led by Adam Burrows, Member in the School of Natural Sciences, has created the largest collection yet of state-of-the-art, three-dimensional core-collapse supernova simulations.

Nine past scholars across three IAS Schools—Natural Sciences, Historical Studies, and Social Science—have received 2024 Guggenheim Fellowships, one of the most remarkable honors for mid-career researchers, artists, and writers. 

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 two-week “marathon” workshop on S-matrix theory, organized by scholars from the School of Natural Sciences, brought together more than 40 cosmologists, particle theorists, and mathematicians from around the world to discuss future directions in the field. 

Lindsey D. Cameron, Member in the School of Social Science, has written for the Harvard Business Review about her research into the global gig economy. Alongside co-author Kalie M. Mayberry, she argues that traditional approaches to labor issues have been ineffective in supporting gig workers because, in the gig economy, customer and worker interests "don’t align."

Two incoming Members in the School of Natural Sciences have received 2024 Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowships from NASA: Alexander Dittmann (2024–28) and Yue Hu (2024–27). 

In the School of Mathematics, AMIAS Member Rachel Greenfeld and Veblen Research Instructor Sarah Peluse (2020–23), have proved that large sets of points with integer distances between them must lie almost entirely on a single line or circle. 

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. 

Past Member and frequent Visiting Professor Russell Impagliazzo, and collaborator with Avi Wigderson, Herbert H. Maas Professor in the School of Mathematics, discussed everything from cryptography to Dungeons & Dragons in an interview with Quanta Magazine. 

This article from ACSR Discovery profiles computational work by James Stone, Professor in the School of Natural Sciences, and his colleagues, which has revealed details about how matter falling into black holes and the energy released from them impacts the evolution of the universe.

The Institute’s Krateros Project is launching a new, exploratory effort to further unlock the text of ancient Greek inscriptions by applying optical character recognition technology to its 30,000-strong collection of epigraphic squeezes.

Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science, and her AI Democracy Projects co-founder Julia Angwin have penned an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times about the "misleading" election information that abounds on many AI platforms.

In a recent op-ed, Joan Scott, Professor Emerita in the School of Social Science, explains how the recent and widely-celebrated French constitutional amendment securing women's access to abortion falls short of full equality.

The rising prominence of artificial intelligence continues to blur the lines between human and machine. An exhibition currently on display at the Institute reveals that, since its founding, IAS has been a key space for the testing and contesting of these boundaries.

This Spring, the Institute's Arts lineup includes free, public programs with world renowned concert pianists, a three-time Grammy Award winning mezzo soprano, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and a star Principal Dancer and current Artistic Director of the San Francisco Ballet.

A pair of astronomers, including Itai Linial, Member (2022–23) in the School of Natural Sciences, "have discovered a handful of supermassive black holes that are associated with bursts of X-rays that recur every few hours or days." 

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. 

Peter Sarnak, Gopal Prasad Professor in the School of Mathematics, spoke with Quanta about the impact of research into elliptic curves using statistical techniques and artificial intelligence. Understanding such curves has been dubbed "a high-stakes endeavor that has been central to math." 

Karl H. Palmquist, Martin A. and Helen Chooljian Member in Biology in the School of Natural Sciences, received the award for designing innovative new methods for studying the mechanical forces by which cells in developing chicken skin organize themselves.

In an op-ed for the Financial Times, Daniela Gabor, Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., and Annette L. Nazareth Member in the School of Social Science, argues that the U.K.'s central bank strategy to unwind quantitative easing is an illegitimate use of its fiscal powers.

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.

Past scholars in the Schools of Mathematics and Natural Sciences are among the recipients of the 2024 Sloan Research Fellowships, a landmark honor for early-career scholars. 

IAS Director and Leon Levy Professor David Nirenberg has been announced as the recipient of the University of Tübingen’s 2024 Leopold Lucas Prize. Nirenberg is to be recognized for his research into the relationship between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the Middle Ages and the present day.

The Association for Asian Studies has announced Kriti Kapila, Member in the School of Social Science, as one of three winners of the 2024 Bernard S. Cohn Prize for first books on South Asia. Kapila was recognized for her title Nullius, an anthropological account of the troubled status of ownership in India.

Miguel Walsh, von Neumann Fellow in the School of Mathematics, has been announced as one of two recipients of the 2024 Young Mathematician IMSA Prize. The award recognizes scholars from Latin America and the Caribbean region who have made "remarkable contributions to mathematics."

"Leading contributions to computational astrophysics" made by James Stone, Professor in the School of Natural Sciences, are set to be recognized with an award from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). 

Past IAS Member and Visitor Neta Bahcall has been announced as the 2024 winner of the American Astronomical Society's prestigious Henry Norris Russell Lectureship. Neta's receipt of this award makes her and her late husband John N. Bahcall, past Professor in the School of Natural Sciences, the first astronomy couple to each receive this honor.

At the 2024 Joint Mathematics Meetings, six former scholars from the School of Mathematics were presented with awards by the American Mathematical Society. The work for which the scholars were praised encompasses diverse fields of mathematics, including the theory of tensor categories, p-adic group representations, and the Conway knot.

In an article for Foreign Affairs, Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science, advocates for focusing on the possibilities that artificial intelligence might provide, as opposed to dwelling on its perils. 

Wendy Brown, UPS Foundation Professor in the School of Social Science, spoke with The Nation about the multifront crisis of the post-Trump era, the moral and intellectual commitments of scholars and higher education, and her recent book Nihilistic Times: Thinking With Max Weber.

As the turn of the year approaches, we are delighted to share an image from this year’s IAS holiday card. The card features photographs of the linden tree that graces our campus, alongside a message from Director and Leon Levy Professor David Nirenberg.

This December, over 200 scholars from across the globe descended on the Institute for Advanced Study for a three-day Qubit workshop focused on applying ideas and concepts from quantum information theory to the study of spacetime.

Didier Fassin, James D. Wolfensohn Professor in the School of Social Science, has been awarded an honorary doctorate from the Free University of Brussels. The university, by awarding the insignia of doctorate honoris causa, honors recipients who have served their fields (whether it be in science, arts, or politics) with distinction and excellence. 

Wang Hui, Elizabeth and J. Richardson Dilworth Fellow in the School of Historical Studies, has been included in Prospect Magazine's annual list of Top Thinkers. His work is described as an "indispensable reference point for those seeking to understand China as it is today and where it might be going."

Scholars from the School of Natural Sciences brought together astrophysicists from across the world for a workshop focused on improving understanding of observations from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). The organizers also hosted an observing night for the IAS community, featuring a specially constructed radio telescope.

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.

Bhargav Bhatt, Fernholz Joint Professor in the IAS School of Mathematics and Princeton University, was lauded by the Infosys Prize committee for his "groundbreaking contributions" to arithmetic geometry and commutative algebra.

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.

On the eve of Election Day, Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science, and Maya Wiley have co-authored an op-ed for The Messenger, examining the present and future risks of AI to the democratic process and efforts to keep such technology in check.

The TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology at the Technical University of Munich has awarded Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science, its inaugural Friedrich Schiedel Prize for Social Sciences and Technology, recognizing outstanding scholars and change makers in the field of social sciences.

Edward Witten, Professor Emeritus in the School of Natural Sciences, is the latest guest on the BBC podcast The Life Scientific. As well as discussing his career, Witten reflected on the "special place" of the Institute, describing the "stimulation" provided by his IAS colleagues.

Edward Witten, Professor Emeritus in the School of Natural Sciences, has been awarded a Benjamin Lee Professorship by the Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP). The professorship was named for prominent South Korean physicist Benjamin Whisoh Lee, a frequent IAS Member.

In 1977, Michael Walzer, Professor Emeritus in the School of Social Science, "updated the Augustinian theory on the legitimacy of armed conflicts from a secular and leftist point of view" with his book Just and Unjust Wars. In this interview, he addresses the moral dilemmas surrounding the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Misha Tsodyks, C.V. Starr Professor in the School of Natural Sciences, has been recognized by the Society of Neuroscience for "publishing many ground-breaking papers that overturned the dominant thinking of the time."

April 2022 saw Hollywood come to the Institute as filming for Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer biopic took place on campus. This article, featuring comments from Members and Visitors across all four IAS Schools, provides insight into what it was like to share the campus with the production team and highlights our community's reactions to the film.

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.

Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science, has been named the U.S. representative to the United Nations High-Level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence, which aims to foster a globally inclusive approach to AI governance.

Michael Magee, current von Neumann Fellow in the School of Mathematics, has won a Philip Leverhulme Prize for mathematical research, specifically his work on spectral geometry.

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.

Akshay Venkatesh, Robert & Luisa Fernholz Professor in the School of Mathematics, and past Members David Ben-Zvi and Yiannis Sakellaridis have made significant progress "on a long-held dream within a sweeping research initiative in mathematics called the Langlands program."

Princeton Mayor Mark Freda and IAS Director and Leon Levy Professor David Nirenberg discuss the Institute's distinctive strengths, the continuing legacy of J. Robert Oppenheimer and other key figures from IAS history, and how the institution plays a role in making the small town of Princeton "punch far above its weight in terms of its intellectual place in the world."

Didier Fassin, James D. Wolfensohn Professor in the School of Social Science, and Anne-Claire Defossez, Visitor in the School, were invited to contribute an article to a special 200th anniversary edition of The Lancet on the subject of how border violence presents a public health concern.

On November 15, Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science, will be presented with a Public Service Award from the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) for "her leadership on both AI regulation and advancing equity in STEM fields."

Peter Sarnak, Gopal Prasad Professor in the School of Mathematics, has received an honorary doctorate from Stockholm University for his work in number theory and mathematical analysis, which is "famous for great depth and tremendous breadth."

To celebrate her latest book, Wendy Brown, UPS Foundation Professor in the School of Social Science, spoke with EL PAÍS about the relevance of Max Weber today and how both knowledge and politics have been stricken by nihilistic boundary breakdowns and degradation of values.

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.

In the wake of the revelation that over 2,000 objects have been stolen from the British Museum over a number of years, Angelos Chaniotis, Professor in the School of Historical Studies, discusses the implications that this theft has for the Museum's credibility as a repository of monuments.

The 2023 iteration of Park City Mathematics Institute (PCMI), an annual Institute outreach program held in Park City, Utah, took place between July 16–August 5. The choice of research topic, quantum computation, was motivated by the substantial current activity, both theoretical and practical, in this field.

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.

TIME has named Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor in the Institute's School of Social Science, to the first-ever TIME100 AI list, which highlights 100 individuals advancing major conversations about how AI is reshaping the world.

Join the Institute for Advanced Study, one of the world’s leading centers for curiosity-driven research, for the 2024–25 academic year. Accepted scholars, drawn from around the world, will be able to pursue their own research within one of the four IAS Schools: Historical Studies, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Social Science. Funding is available.

This July, 18 aspiring and early-career science journalists from all over the U.S., as well as Canada, the UK, Germany, Portugal, Nigeria, and the Philippines converged on campus for an intensive workshop led by past IAS Director's Visitors Natalie Wolchover and Siobhan Roberts. 

With the launch of chatbots such as ChatGPT and Bard, artificial intelligence (AI) has never been more prominently placed in the popular imagination. At IAS, the technology has been the subject of interdisciplinary discussion for some time. This article, featuring comments from scholars across all four IAS Schools, demonstrates the breadth of debate.

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.

Svitlana Mayboroda, past von Neumann Fellow in the School of Mathematics (2018, 2021), has been honored with a Blavatnik National Award for Young Scientists for developing an elegant new mathematical theory to understand electronic waves.

Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science, has won a 2023 Champions of Freedom Award from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) for her work safeguarding privacy, open government, and democratic values. 

Richard Lauren Kagan, past Member in the School of Historical Studies (1976–77, 2006), and Geoffrey Parker have penned a profile of Sir John Huxtable Elliott, Professor in the School of Historical Studies from 1973–90.

Inspired by the release of Christoper Nolan's biopic Oppenheimer, this interview highlights the diverse research taking place across all four IAS schools and how the influence of leading figures from IAS history, such as Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer, is still felt at the Institute today.

IAS Director and Leon Levy Professor David Nirenberg "walks in Oppenheimer’s shoes." In an interview with NJ.com, he discusses how, in the current age of AI, the role for the Institute that Oppenheimer helped to carve out is needed "as much as ever."

Sabine Schmidtke, Professor in the School of Historical Studies, has been elected to the British Academy.

Kai Bird sat down at the Institute for Advanced Study with CBS correspondent David Martin to talk about J. Robert Oppenheimer ahead of the release of Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer. 

IAS Director and Leon Levy Professor David Nirenberg discusses how, after helping invent the atomic bomb, past Director J. Robert Oppenheimer spent decades thinking about how to preserve civilization from technological dangers, offering crucial lessons for the age of AI.

Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science, joined Washington Post Live for a conversation about artificial intelligence, the workforce, and the global economy.

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.

Didier Fassin, James D. Wolfensohn Professor in the School of Social Science, writes for the New Statesman about the killing of Nahel Merzouk by a police officer and the social unrest resulting from it.

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.”

Rubina Raja, past Member in the School of Historical Studies (2019), was praised by the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung award committee for her cross-disciplinary work, located at the interface between classical archaeology and religious studies.

Jeffrey Gould, Distinguished Visiting Professor in the School of Historical Studies, just returned from a trip to Chile and El Salvador, discusses recent political trends in Latin America.

Regarded by Hermann Weyl as “the greatest [woman mathematician] that history has known”, Emmy Noether, past Visitor in the School of Mathematics (1933–35), was a pioneer in the field of abstract algebra. This June, the Institute is hosting a conference celebrating her contributions, which is accompanied by a display of archival materials in Fuld Hall.

On May 18, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Kai Bird joined IAS Director and Leon Levy Professor David Nirenberg to discuss the complex legacy of past IAS Director J. Robert Oppenheimer and reflect on the emotional impact of Christopher Nolan's upcoming film.

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."

“'Today’s future-positive writers critique our economies while largely seeming to ignore that anything might be amiss in our private lives,' writes [past Member in the School of Social Science] Kristen Ghodsee."

In a recent interview with Foreign Policy’s Ravi Agrawal, Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science and architect of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, explains how AI should be regulated as the unprecedented technology and the debates surrounding it develop.

Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science, has been honored with the SAGE-CASBS Award.

The 2023 Women and Mathematics Program took place from May 21–26, bringing together 31 students, educators, and researchers from universities around the world to participate in a series of lectures, problem sessions, research seminars, and special talks around the theme "Patterns in Integers."

Past Faculty Shing-Tung Yau (1980–84) and Vladimir Drinfeld, past Member (1990, 1996–97, 1998) and recent Visiting Professor (2019–20), have been awarded the 2023 Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences.

"The architect of Biden's 'Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights' [Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science] Alondra Nelson talks to Christiane Amanpour about the threats and opportunities posed by artificial intelligence."

On May 19, 2023, the IAS community came together to celebrate Founders Day, an annual event that honors sibling philanthropists Louis Bamberger and Caroline Bamberger Fuld, whose gift secured the foundation and endowment of IAS.

By Wendy Brown, UPS Foundation Professor in the School of Social Science:

"In 1917 and 1919, at the invitation of University of Munich students, Max Weber delivered two public lectures, 'Science as a Vocation' and 'Politics as a Vocation.'"

Harel Shapira, past Member (2021–22) in the School of Social Science, provides a first-hand account of civilian firearms training.

Angelos Chaniotis, Professor in the School of Historical Studies, has been elected to the American Philosophical Society (APS), one of the oldest learned societies in the United States, composed of top scholars in a wide variety of disciplines. 

Christina Dunbar-Hester, current Member in the School of Social Science, argues that people’s health and mobility should take precedence over goods movement in the quest for cleaner air in California.

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.”

By Alyssa Battistoni, current Member in the School of Social Science:

"When the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law last August, it was celebrated as the biggest piece of federal climate legislation ever passed in the United States."

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.

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.

"For three days last April, the Institute for Advanced Study resembled its 1950s self. Actors wearing mid-century-appropriate clothing were spotted in and around Fuld Hall and Olden Manor, shooting scenes for a feature film about J. Robert Oppenheimer, famed theoretical physicist and Institute director from 1947 to 1966."

Christopher Bonura, current Member in the School of Historical Studies, is one of 36 artists and scholars to be awarded a Rome Prize for 2023–24 by the American Academy in Rome (AAR).

Toni Mikael Annala, current Member in the School of Mathematics, has received the 2023 CMS Blair Spearman Doctoral Prize from the Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS).

Eight scholars across all four Schools—Mathematics, Natural Sciences, Historical Studies, and Social Science—have been elected as members of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, an honor that recognizes accomplishments and leadership in academia, the arts, industry, public policy, and research. 

Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science, has received an honorary doctorate from Northeastern University, in recognition of her work as a “groundbreaking advocate for scientific discovery and technology innovation that focuses on ethics, racial and gender equity, and access.”

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."

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.

Four years ago, astronomers released the first ever image of a black hole. Now a subset of that team, led by IAS scholar Lia Medeiros, has used artificial intelligence to produce a vastly improved version of the image.

Christina Dunbar-Hester, current Member in the School of Social Science, discusses how industry and wildlife battle for their share of the Southern California coastline: "To protect human and animal life alike, we have to confront the zero-sum logic where goods movement crowds out space for flourishing life."

Grigory Kessel, past Member in the School of Historical Studies (2021–22), has played a key role in the rediscovery of a "hidden chapter" of Biblical text nearly 1,500 years after it was first written. 

"What does a public vision for A.I. actually look like? What do we as a society want from this technology, and how can we design policy to orient it in that direction? There are few people who have thought as deeply about those questions as Alondra Nelson." On this episode of The Ezra Klein Show, the Harold F. Linder Professor in the Institute's School of Social Science explores the A.I. policy challenge and more.

Seven scholars across all four Schools—Mathematics, Natural Sciences, Historical Studies, and Social Science—have won 2023 Guggenheim Fellowships, one of the most remarkable honors for mid-career researchers, artists, and writers. 

Jennifer Lee, current Member in the School of Social Science, has been selected by the American Academy of Political and Social Science (AAPSS) as one of six 2023 fellows. 

Lia Medeiros, current Member in the School of Natural Sciences, has been named an Einstein Fellow of the NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP). 

Emmy Murphy is a past Member and Visitor in the School of Mathematics, serving as a von Neumann fellow in 2019–20. In this Quanta interview, Murphy discusses geometric spaces and the spaces inhabited by mathematicians, as well as the inspiration that she draws from her namesake, past IAS Visitor Emmy Noether. 

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.

A new workshop for up-and-coming science journalists will be hosted on the Institute campus from July 10–15, 2023. The workshop will provide emerging writers with a chance to network with IAS scientists and hone their journalistic skills. 

“Exceptionally prolific mathematician” Luis Caffarelli, past Faculty (1986–96) and Member (2009) in the Institute’s School of Math, has been awarded the 2023 Abel Prize for his field-shaping work on nonlinear partial differential equations.

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.

An interview with Kristen Ghodsee, past Member in the School of Social Science (2006–07), on her new book Everyday Utopia.

By Eben Kirksey, past Member in the School of Social Science:

"Since James Watson and Francis Crick first described the structure of the DNA double helix, scientists have debated the potential for creating genetically modified babies."

"[Shafi] Goldwasser has worked to bring the same rigor to the study of vulnerabilities in machine learning algorithms. She teamed up with [Vinod] Vaikuntanathan and the postdoctoral researchers Michael Kim, of the University of California, Berkeley, and Or Zamir, of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, to study what kinds of backdoors are possible."

Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science, will serve as a distinguished senior fellow at the Center for American Progress (CAP). According the CAP announcement, “Dr. Nelson will work with CAP to explore and drive forward policy around the interconnections between science, data, economies, equity and justice, and democracy...

"Alondra Nelson stepped down last month from her role as leader of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Today’s editorial in Science highlights her accomplishments while she served in the Biden administration."

Eight scholars in the Schools of Mathematics and Natural Sciences are among the recipients of the 2023 Sloan Research Fellowships, a landmark honor for early-career scholars. 

"To examine the special history of the region, I turned to Jeffrey Gould, who has known the area well as an activist, documentary filmmaker, and scholar since the 1970s."

As an educator, he worked to put architecture on an equal footing with other disciplines. As an architect, he was known for buildings at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

Ingrid Daubechies, past Member in the School of Mathematics (1999), has won the 2023 Wolf Prize “for work in wavelet theory and applied harmonic analysis.” 

Harold F. Linder Professor Alondra Nelson announced that she will leave the White House on Friday, February 10th and return to her role in the School of Social Science.

By Siobhan Roberts, frequent Director's Visitor:

"Lisanne Taams, a student at Radboud University in the Netherlands, is working on a Ph.D. about, in her words, 'computing motives of moduli stacks of vector bundles on stacky curves.'"

Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science, and the first woman of color to lead the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) earlier in the Biden administration, is set to step down from her current post as a deputy director on February 10, 2023.

By Christina Dunbar-Hester, current Member in the School of Social Science:

"Ports in the Los Angeles region entered national headlines as a supply chain crisis unfurled during the pandemic. After an initial near-halt to commerce and shipping in early 2020, some of us saw bluer skies and enjoyed cleaner air for a fleeting moment."

Anna Wienhard, current Member in the School of Mathematics, has received the Hector Science Award 2022 from the Hector Foundation, which honors outstanding scientists from German universities and research institutions. 

The American Astronomical Society (AAS) has announced its awards and prizes for 2023. This includes three former scholars in the School of Natural Sciences, who were given a Buchalter Cosmology Prize.

By Alyssa Battistoni, current Member in the School of Social Science:

"When the multi-hyphenate scholar of science Bruno Latour died last October at the age of 75, tributes poured in from all corners of academia and many beyond. In the aughts, Latour had been a ubiquitous reference point for Anglophone social and cultural theory, standing alongside Judith Butler and Michel Foucault on the list of most cited academics in fields ranging from geography to art history."

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.

As part of a three episode series which aims to help improve understanding of liberalism, host Justin Kempf speaks with Michael Walzer, Professor Emeritus in the School of Social Science. The podcast touches on Walzer's newest book, The Struggle for a Decent Politics: On Liberal as an Adjective.