News

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. 

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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."

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.

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.

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." 

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.

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.

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."

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).

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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." 

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.

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. 

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.

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, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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."

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.”

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.

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."

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. 

"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."

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.

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).

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.”

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. 

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.

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. 

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."

"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."

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."

"[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."

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.” 

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.'"

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.

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.

By Joan Wallach Scott, Professor Emerita in the School of Social Science: 

"[The Hamline case] is not an example of any tension between diversity and academic freedom, but of the confusion between fair treatment of minority students (respect and care for their well-being) and capitulation to religious censorship. The one does not require the other."

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.

Professor Emerita Caroline Walker Bynum has received the 2022 Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Catholic Historical Association (ACHA) “for a lifetime of excellence in research and scholarship in the field of medieval history.” 

By David Nirenberg, Director and Leon Levy Professor: 

"What counts as antisemitism? Is it on the rise, and if so, who’s to blame—the left or the right, Christians or Muslims? Or is it “the Jews” and their actions that are at fault, as some maintain. These questions may feel new, but the resurgence of antisemitism didn’t begin in 2022, and it’s not only happening in the U.S."

Past Members in the School of Mathematics Peter B. Kronheimer (1987–89) and Tomasz Mrowka (2003–04) have received the 2023 Leroy P. Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research.

"It is a cliché to refer to the long economic boom in France that followed the Second World War—the three decades between 1945 and 1975—as les trente glorieuses. The phrase has no satisfying translation, though 'golden' hints at the éclat thrown off by the final adjective. Adopting this terminology for our ends, we might refer to the 1980s as Yve-Alain Bois’ décennie glorieuse."

By Hillary Angelo, current Member in the School of Social Science:

"Beatty, an old gold rush town in Nye County, Nevada, looks like a Wild West stage set. Burros, legacies of the region’s mining past, wander the streets. A century ago, it was a bustling three-railroad town. Today, it’s home to 854 people."

Angelos Chaniotis, current Faculty in the School of Historical Studies, discusses the significance of Pope Francis' recent decision to donate fragments of the Parthenon sculptures held by the Vatican to Greece, and looks at whether this serves as an example for the British Museum to take similar action.

"'Space-time is doomed,' says Nima Arkani-Hamed, a physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Arkani-Hamed has reached this conclusion over the past decade, as he's tried to gain a better understanding of what's happening inside the world's most powerful atom-smashers."

A new exhibition, available to view in the Institute's Mathematics – Natural Sciences Library and Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center, takes a critical look at the notion that mathematics is a single, true, "universal language". The displays probe what it takes to construct meaning in mathematical discourse, while highlighting groundbreaking work by IAS scholars such as Shiing-Shen Chern, Robert Langlands, and Edward Witten.

"'It’s easy to cover a floor with copies of squares, triangles or hexagons [...] but only in ways that never repeat. 'You want to understand the structure of such tilings,' said Rachel Greenfeld, a mathematician at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. 'How crazy can they get?' Pretty crazy, it turns out."

This year, UPS Foundation Professor Wendy Brown will lead the Institute’s School of Social Science theme seminar on the politics of climate crisis. In her own words, Brown describes the theme seminar as an investigation of the emergent politics that...

"Alondra Nelson took the helm as interim director of the US Office of Science and Technology Policy and helped President Joe Biden’s administration to develop key pieces of its science agenda, including its scientific-integrity policy and new guidance on open science."

By Director's Visitor Siobhan Roberts:

"Ms. Rosenkrantz and Mr. Louis-Rosenberg are algorithmic artists who make laser-cut wooden jigsaw puzzles — among other curios — at their design studio, Nervous System, in Palenville, N.Y. [...] The couple draw their creativity from many points around the compass: science, math, art and fuzzy zones between."

By Heba Gowayed, current Member in the School of Social Science, and Julie Dahlstrom: 

"Former President Donald Trump has made human trafficking central to his platform, pledging to mobilize the full force of the U.S. government to fight this 'epidemic,' a hard line he recently reiterated in a speech in Ohio."

The Hidden Stories project, co-led by Suzanne Conklin Akbari, aims to explore the systems, peoples and cultures that make a book, including its physical and biological properties that reveal new knowledge. Everything from fungal growth on its pages to the trade routes involved in the materials used to make the book will be studied.

By Michael Walzer, Professor Emeritus in the School of Social Science:

"No one doubts that leaving, refusing to fight against Ukraine, is a good thing, a commendable act, but is it morally obligatory?"

Joan Wallach Scott, Professor Emerita in the School of Social Science, has been awarded an honorary doctorate from Université Paris 8.

Didier Fassin, James D. Wolfensohn Professor in the School of Social Science, has been elected to the American Philosophical Society (APS), which recognizes extraordinary accomplishments across a variety of fields. 

"The idea, put forth by Juan Maldacena of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., hinted at something profound: that our universe could be a hologram. Much like a 3-D hologram emerges from the information encoded on a 2-D surface, our universe’s 4-D spacetime could be a holographic projection of a lower-dimensional reality."

"Physicists have purportedly created the first-ever wormhole, a kind of tunnel theorized in 1935 by Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen that leads from one place to another by passing into an extra dimension of space."

"Earlier this year, a trio of mathematicians decided to make lemons into lemonade — and ended up making major headway on a problem that mathematicians have been thinking about for centuries."

By David Nirenberg, Director and Leon Levy Professor: 

"Unlike his much more famous colleague Albert Einstein, John von Neumann is not a household name these days, but his discoveries shape the possibilities of life for every creature on this planet."

"This past September, 281 new and returning scholars and Faculty gathered for a new term welcome at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton."

"Like many people who would go on to become mathematicians, Wei Ho grew up competing in math contests. In eighth grade, she won the Mathcounts state competition in Wisconsin, and her team took third place at nationals."

Rashid Sunyaev, Distinguished Visiting Professor in the School of Natural Sciences, has been awarded the Max Planck Medal, the highest prize in theoretical physics granted by the German Physical Society (DPG), in recognition of “numerous and...

Myles Jackson, Albers-Schönberg Professor in the History of Science, School of Historical Studies, has been elected to the German National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech), which advises on issues related to technical sciences and technology policies in Germany.

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.

"A mathematician who went from obscurity to luminary status in 2013 for cracking a century-old question about prime numbers now claims to have solved another. The problem is similar to—but distinct from—the Riemann hypothesis, which is considered one of the most important problems in mathematics."

Yale Law School Professor Amy Kapczynski and Wendy Brown, UPS Foundation Professor in the School of Social Science, discuss the value of democracy, the role of the courts, and strategies for democratizing our political economy.

By Jennifer Lee, current Member in the School of Social Science: 

"Affirmative action is on trial again. This time, opponents of race-conscious college admission practices are claiming that Asian Americans are hurt by it. The plaintiffs in Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, which presented oral arguments before the Supreme Court on Monday, allege that Harvard holds Asian American applicants to higher academic standards and rates them lower than other students on personal characteristics, such as fit, courage and likability."

"The gas gobbled up by M87* and Sgr A* (the supermassive black holes at the centers of Messier 87 and the Milky Way), is likely a mix of hydrogen and helium with just a dash of heavier elements, but we don’t know its exact composition."

The 2022–23 Edward T. Cone Concert Series, curated by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang, concludes with a multi-year look at how composers and performers use different definitions of VIRTUOSITY to push themselves forward.  

"David Nirenberg sees connections everywhere. As a professor of medieval history, he charted the relatedness of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thought in different eras. As a dean at the University of Chicago Divinity School, he championed a program to promote collaborative ideas across the university."

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.

Monica Kim (Member, 2015–16) and Reuben Jonathan Miller (Member, 2016–17) in the School of Social Science, as well as June Huh (Veblen Fellow, 2014–17; Visiting Professor, 2017–20) in the School of Mathematics, have joined the 2022 class of MacArthur Fellows. The world-renowned fellowship celebrates the artistic and scientific accomplishments of individuals across a variety of fields, enabling their future pursuits.

By Siobhan Roberts, current Director's Visitor:

"In July, Chandler Davis, an American Canadian mathematician and human rights defender, delivered welcoming remarks at a panel for the 'Azat Miftakhov Days Against the War' in Ukraine from his hospital bed in Toronto, a vase of sunflowers by his side."

By Maira Hayat, current Member in the School of Social Science: 

"As Pakistan is enduring devastating floods and an ongoing humanitarian disaster — including decimated crops, more than 500 children dead, hospitals filled with malaria and dengue-infected people and millions of people displaced from their homes — its water infrastructure and management have come under increasing scrutiny.

"Francesca Trivellato is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Early Modern European History at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. She is the author, most recently, of The Promise and Peril of Credit: What a Forgotten Legend about Jews and Finance Tells us about the Making of European Commercial Society (Princeton University Press, 2019).

Lia Medeiros, current Member in the School of Natural Sciences, has received a special commendation from the judges at Nature Awards.

Didier Fassin, James D. Wolfensohn Professor in the School of Social Science, has been appointed as a professor at the Collège de France, as of October 1, 2022.

By Andrea Sempértegui, Visitor (2021–22) in the School of Social Science:

"For eighteen days this June, thousands of Ecuadorians participated in a national strike that blocked highways across the country, paralyzed the capital city of Quito, and obstructed oil wells and mining sites from the northern Amazon to the southern Andes."

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

"'No one wants to work anymore' was the surprise refrain of late 2021, posted on the doors of businesses forced to close for lack of staff and delightedly memed by a burgeoning anti-work crowd online."

The 2023 New Horizons in Mathematics Prize, a renowned award which honors the work of early-career mathematicians, went to past Veblen Research Instructor Ana Caraiani (2013–16), recent von Neumann Fellow Ronen Eldan (2021–22), and current Member James Maynard.

The Institute for Advanced Study extends well wishes to former Mathematics/Natural Sciences Faculty member Chen Ning Yang on his 100th birthday. During Yang’s time at IAS, he and his collaborator, fellow Faculty member Tsung Dao Lee, were awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics. He has a left tremendous legacy in our community today.

On September 19, 2022, Director and Leon Levy Professor David Nirenberg delivered remarks as 281 new and returning scholars arrived on campus, from postdoctoral fellows at the beginning of their research careers to distinguished senior academics, in order to celebrate the formal start of the 2022–23 academic year.

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...

By Angelos Chaniotis, Professor in the School of Historical Studies:

"The Greek government’s intention to transform the country’s five most important museums – the National Archaeological Museum and the Byzantine and Christian Museum in Athens, the...

"Widely separated binary systems take more than a thousand years to complete a single orbit, making it challenging to measure the eccentricity of an individual system. Instead, Hsiang-Chih Hwang used a statistical technique to study nearly a million binary systems at once."

"The Arts and Sciences used to share much of the same intellectual space. Only recently have they diverged to the degree that they seem diametrically opposed. The Exchange is our attempt to rekindle some of the dialogue that occurred between the two fields."

By Joan Wallach Scott, Professor Emerita in the School of Social Science:

"In his recent essay in these pages on the vexed question of 'presentism' in the discipline of history, David Bell offers a soothing alternative to the American Historical Association president James Sweet’s clumsy dismissal of 'presentism' as a deviation from the true path of historical scholarship."

Research from IAS scholars, past and present, features prominently in the September 2022 issue of Scientific American. Past Director’s Visitor George Musser takes account of the recent groundbreaking work being done on the infamous black hole information paradox by researchers including Member Ahmed Almheiri, who authors his own essay on the solution to the paradox.

"The carried interest tax loophole allows wealthy Americans, like those in private equity and hedge funds, to avoid billions in taxes each year. It's been one of the most controversial features of the U.S. tax system, yet it has survived multiple attempts (by Republicans and Democrats) to try to kill the loophole. The most recent attempt — in the Inflation Reduction Act — was thwarted last week."

Three IAS Members in the School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences have received the 2022 ICTP Dirac Medal “for groundbreaking and mathematically rigorous contributions to the understanding of the statistical mechanics of classical and quantum physical systems.”

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

“We can see the unseen. An astonishing deep-field image of crashing galaxies and bygone nebulae. A glimpse at what the death of our own sun might look like. Baby stars being born perched on cosmic cliffs. The first photographs of the JWST are breathtaking, and they will dramatically change how we understand the universe."

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

Bhargav Bhatt, Fernholz Joint Professor in the School of Mathematics, has received the Frederic Esser Nemmers Prize in Mathematics. He is cited for his “revolutionary contributions to algebraic geometry in mixed characteristic through a new synthesis of ideas in topology, algebra and arithmetic.”

By Adriana Petryna, Member (2003–04) and Visitor (2006) in the School of Social Science:

"Already this year, both Colorado and New Mexico have seen the most destructive wildfires in their states’ histories. Colorado’s Marshall Fire consumed almost 1,100 homes in Boulder County. At a time when rooftops and lawns would normally have been covered with snow, drought had left the region dry and vulnerable instead."

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.

Past and current scholars in the School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences have won four of the prestigious prizes granted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU), including the 2022 Fields, Abacus, and Chern Medals, and the Gauss Prize. 

"June Huh often finds himself lost. Every afternoon, he takes a long walk around Princeton University, where he’s a professor in the mathematics department. On this particular day in mid-May, he’s making his way through the woods around the nearby Institute for Advanced Study."

"By the time he was 17, Mark Braverman had lived in three countries and spoke as many languages. But though he doesn’t have a hometown, he’s quick to call theoretical computer science his home."

"In 2013, one of the best—but also one of the worst—things that can happen to a mathematician happened to James Maynard. Fresh out of graduate school, he solved one of the discipline’s oldest and most central problems, about the spacing of prime numbers."

Peter Hewitt Christensen, past Member (2022) in the School of Historical Studies, has been named Ani and Mark Gabrellian Director of the University of Rochester’s Humanities Center, succeeding Joan Shelley Rubin. 

Five past Members in the School of Natural Sciences and the School of Mathematics have been selected as 2022 Simons Investigators, enabling them to undertake a long-term study of fundamental questions in their fields. 

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

"Above all, Dobbs further entrenches states’ rights as a powerful weapon of minority rule in what we sloppily call the 'culture wars' today."

By Angelos Chaniotis, Professor in the School of Historical Studies: 

"According to an anecdote known in several variations, some people debate what would have changed in the history of the world if Khrushchev had been assassinated in 1963 instead of Kennedy. A well-known statesman gave a sharp response: 'Only one thing is certain: Onassis would not have married his widow.'"

"In Particle Fever, theorist Nima Arkani-Hamed says on camera, 'I’ve spent the last 15 years thinking about the LHC.' Today, he’s still thinking about collider physics, but from different points of view.

"As Chris Hamilton (Institute for Advanced Study) explains in a recent research article, understanding the current orbits of binary stars in the Milky Way requires separating the effects of nature (the eccentricities that the binary systems are born with) and nurture (the outside gravitational effects of passing stars and the background galactic pull)."

Chris Hamilton, current Member in the School of Natural Sciences, has received the International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) 2021 Ph.D. Prize to Recognize Excellence in Astrophysics for his thesis “Secular Dynamics of Binaries in Stellar Clusters," supervised by current IAS Visitor and frequent Member Roman Rafikov. 

"On Juneteenth, we think of Black Americans who descended from enslaved people who live today with wrongs we know, in many cases, how to set right. Our challenge as a policy office is how to do it at scale, across the entire Federal government, drawing on the talent of an increasingly inclusive and equitable research community."

Ahmed Almheiri, past Member (2017–22) in the School of Natural Sciences, has received a 2022 IUPAP Early Career Scientist Award in Particles and Fields “for substantial and impactful contributions to the understanding of black holes and quantum gravity, specifically related to the information paradox and its connection to quantum information theory and quantum error correction.”

By Siobhan Roberts, current Director's Visitor:

"Alyssa Blackburn, a data scientist at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, has spent several years performing digital detective work with her trusty lab assistant, Hail Mary, a shiny black computer with orange trim. She has been collecting and analyzing leaks from the Bitcoin blockchain, the immutable public ledger that has recorded all transactions since the cryptocurrency’s launch in January 2009."

"Last July, two mathematicians from Durham University, Will Hide and Michael Magee, confirmed the existence of a much sought-after sequence of surfaces: each more complicated than the last, ultimately becoming so intricately connected with themselves that they nearly reach the limits of what’s possible."

Past Member Roger Ulrich (1975) has been named a winner of the 2022 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics. He is cited, along with Conny Aerts and Jørgen Christensen-Dalsgaard, for “pioneering work and leadership in the development of helioseismology and asteroseismology.”

By Alex Kontorovich, Member (2009–10, 2013–14, 2016) and von Neumann Fellow (2017–18) in the School of Mathematics: 

"Not long ago, I was asked to explain the so-called Langlands program in a single tweet. Impossible, I immediately thought. It’s one of the biggest, most sweeping projects in mathematics, capable of connecting distant realms of research and, naturally, fiendishly difficult to describe."

Current Veblen Research Instructor Sarah Peluse has been awarded the 2022 Dénes König Prize for the paper "Bounds For Sets With No Polynomial Progressions." The honor is presented to an early-career scholar for outstanding research in discrete mathematics. 

The 2022 Women and Mathematics (WAM) program took place from May 21–27, bringing together 40 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 “The Mathematics of Machine Learning.” The program returned to campus for the first time since 2019 after being postponed in 2020 and held remotely in 2021.

Current Visiting Professor Amol Aggarwal has received two prestigious prizes in mathematics: the 2022 Rollo Davidson Prize, for fundamental contributions to random matrix theory and integrable probability; and the 2022 Dubrovin Medal, for contributions to integrable probability, random matrix theory, and moduli spaces. 

On May 26, 2022, IAS celebrated the establishment of the Gopal Prasad Professorship, in recognition of prolific mathematician and six-time IAS Member Gopal Prasad.

Frequent Visiting Professor Noga Alon has won the 2022 Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences for his contributions to discrete mathematics and theoretical computer science. The prize has been compared to the Nobel and carries with it a monetary award of $1,200,000. 

"If an adversary gives you a machine learning model and secretly plants a malicious backdoor in it, what are the chances that you can discover it? Very little, according to a new paper by researchers at UC Berkeley, MIT, and the Institute for Advanced Study."

On May 20, 2022, IAS celebrated Founders Day in recognition of  Louis Bamberger and Caroline Bamberger Fuld, the brother and sister who founded and endowed IAS on May 20, 1930. The event was held on campus, beginning with a toast led by Director and Leon Levy Professor David Nirenberg.

Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science, has been awarded an honorary doctor of science degree by Rutgers University, an honor presented to her at the 2022 Rutgers Commencement by the 21st president of Rutgers, Jonathan Scott Holloway. 

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...

"Frank Wilczek, the Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist and author renowned for his boundary-pushing investigations into the fundamental laws of nature, was honored Wednesday with this year’s prestigious Templeton Prize, awarded to individuals whose life’s work embodies a fusion of science and spirituality."

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 staff of Quanta Magazine, notably senior editor [and 2017 IAS Director's Visitor] Natalie Wolchover, have won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory writing 'for coverage that revealed the complexities of building the James Webb Telescope, designed to facilitate groundbreaking astronomical and cosmological research.'"

On May 6, 2022, the IAS Bamberger Medal was presented to Shelby White, IAS Trustee Emerita and Founder of the Leon Levy Foundation, at a celebration on the Institute’s campus in Princeton, N.J. Shelby has championed the Institute throughout the four decades since her late husband Leon Levy’s appointment to the Board of Trustees in 1988.

James Stone, Professor in the School of Natural Sciences, has been elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors in recognition of advancements in original research. 

"For nearly two centuries, all kinds of researchers interested in how fluids flow have turned to the Navier-Stokes equations. But mathematicians still harbor basic questions about them. Foremost among them: How well do the equations adhere to reality?"

"The halls of academia may appear to be overrun by battles over academic freedom, free speech, identity politics, cancel culture and overreaching wokeness. But why does it look that way? And what are the real causes? The influential political theorist Wendy Brown has spent her career studying the very ideas — those of identity, freedom and tolerance — that are central to current debates about what’s happening on college campuses across the country, as well as to the attacks they’re undergoing from within and without."

Matias Zaldarriaga, Richard Black Professor in the School of Natural Sciences, and Wendy Brown, UPS Foundation Professor in the School of Social Science, have been elected as members of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (AAA&S), an honor that recognizes accomplishments and leadership in academia, the arts, industry, public policy, and research. 

"For generations, science and tech have not spurred the same discussions about identity and racial and gender equity that other policy areas have. Now, though, as the lines between the digital world and the real world blur, the costs of ignoring...

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...

Joetha Collier, a young Black woman, was killed by a white man in 1971, near the Mississippi town where Emmett Till was murdered. Keisha N. Blain, Member in the School of Social Science, asks why isn’t her case known nationally today.

By Jonathan Haslam, past George F. Kennan Professor (2015–21) in the School of Historical Studies:

"Are sanctions against Russia working? Two months on from the first targeting of Russian banks and oligarchs, Putin's grip on power remains as firm as ever. This shouldn't come as a surprise: restrictions on Iran, Venezuela and North Korea have impoverished their populations, but haven’t led to political revolutions."

"When the mathematicians Jeff Kahn and Gil Kalai first posed their 'expectation threshold' conjecture in 2006, they didn’t believe it themselves. Their claim — a broad assertion about mathematical objects called random graphs — seemed too strong, too all-encompassing, too bold to possibly be true."

"In a recent paper, Manjul Bhargava of Princeton University has settled an 85-year-old conjecture about one of math’s most ancient obsessions: the solutions to polynomial equations such as x2 – 3x + 2 = 0. 'It’s a great problem, famous old question,' said Andrew Granville, a professor at the University of Montreal. '[Bhargava] had an interesting, somewhat different approach, which was very creative.'"

"As theorists study black holes and other objects in AdS space, they keep learning Wheeler-esque lessons. One is that the connectivity of space — the ability to get from one place to another — seems to stem from particles on the boundary linked by correlations known as quantum entanglement."

Past Member (2020–21) Jinyoung Park, a Szegö Assistant Professor at Stanford University, and Huy Tuan Pham, a Stanford Ph.D. student, proved the Kahn-Kalai Conjecture, a central problem in probabilistic combinatorics.

"For more than 250 years, mathematicians have been trying to 'blow up' some of the most important equations in physics: those that describe how fluids flow. If they succeed, then they will have discovered a scenario in which those equations break down — a vortex that spins infinitely fast, perhaps, or a current that abruptly stops and starts, or a particle that whips past its neighbors infinitely quickly."

By Didier Fassin, James D. Wolfensohn Professor in the School of Social Science:

The French president’s first term, with his neoliberal and authoritarian policies, has situated him on the right of the political spectrum rather than in the center as he had announced prior to being elected. But his shift has progressively gone even further with the decision to put immigration control and hardline secularism on the agenda.

By Angelos Chaniotis, Professor in the School of Historical Studies:

"For years the European Union has been confronted with visible threats to its cohesion: Brexit, populist anti-European rhetoric, the violations of democratic principles and corruption in former socialist countries, the widening economic gap between member-states, the different reactions to the refugee crisis and to climate change."

Seven IAS scholars across all four IAS Schools, including one current Academic Trustee, have won 2022 Guggenheim Fellowships, one of the most remarkable honors for mid-career researchers, artists, and writers. 

By Jonathan Haslam, past George F. Kennan Professor (2015–21) in the School of Historical Studies:

"Just a few weeks before Vladimir Putin launched what he intended as a two-day Blitzkrieg in Ukraine, taking by surprise even some of his inner circle, he met Xi Jinping for a summit in Beijing. It appeared to the world as if the Chinese might have been implicated in what is the foreign policy gamble of Putin’s political career."

A cross-discipline analysis of ancient genomes by a team of geneticists, archaeologists, and historians from institutions across Europe, Asia, and North America—with Professor Emeritus Patrick Geary as one of four principal investigators—has answered questions about the mysterious Avar population whose origins have remained enigmatic for 1,400 years. 

"The first modern-style code ever executed on a computer was written in the 1940s, by a woman named Klára Dán von Neumann–or Klári to her family and friends. And the historic program she wrote was used to develop thermonuclear weapons. This season, we peer into a fascinating moment in postwar America through the prism of Klári’s work. We explore the evolution of early computers, the vital role women played in early programming, and the inextricable connection between computing and war."

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.

"Lillian Pierce vividly remembers a moment when she was 4 years old, waiting in her family’s station wagon for her older brother and sister to get out of school, magnolia trees forming pink and white arches overhead. Her mother was sitting in the driver’s seat, writing sequences of numbers in blue ink, balancing her checkbook. Pierce was mesmerized."

Bart Ripperda, incoming Member in the School of Natural Sciences, has been named an Einstein Fellow of the NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP). His proposed project is titled Multiwavelength Flares in the High-Energy Universe.

By Michael Walzer, Professor Emeritus in the School of Social Science:

"'A conqueror,' wrote the military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, 'is always a lover of peace. He would like to make his entry into our state unopposed; in order to prevent this, we must choose to fight.' The crime of aggression is to force men and women to make that choice."

Dennis Parnell Sullivan, past Visitor (1967–70, 1975) in the School of Mathematics, is this year’s winner of the prestigious Abel Prize. He is cited by the Abel Committee “for his groundbreaking contributions to topology in its broadest sense, and in particular its algebraic, geometric and dynamical aspects.” 

"Published in 2015, Wendy Brown’s Undoing the Demos was a major theoretical contribution to the study of neoliberalism. Since then, the neoliberal order has been rocked by a series of crises: among them the rise of right-wing, authoritarian regimes across the world; rapidly intensifying ecological devastation; and the COVID-19 pandemic that is now entering its third year."

"Within mathematics, there is a vast and ever expanding web of conjectures, theorems and ideas called the Langlands program. That program links seemingly disconnected subfields. It is such a force that some mathematicians say it—or some aspect of it—belongs in the esteemed ranks of the Millennium Prize Problems, a list of the top open questions in math. Edward Frenkel, a mathematician at the University of California, Berkeley, has even dubbed the Langlands program 'a Grand Unified Theory of Mathematics.'"

Aaron Michael Butts, past Member (2019–20) and Visitor (2020–21) in the School of Historical Studies, has been awarded a consolidator grant by the European Research Council for his project entitled "Beyond Influence (BeInf): The Connected Histories of Ethiopic and Syriac Christianity."

"The Ogallala aquifer, one of the earth’s largest, extends from South Dakota to Texas and, today, supports one-sixth of the world’s grain production, even as it is quickly being drained to the point of collapse. Lucas Bessire’s Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains, which was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award, is a story about the politics and livelihoods that have sustained this extraction."

As we witness with horror the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, I want to express my sympathy for all who are suffering, and to reiterate the support of the Institute for Advanced Study for its Scholars, Staff, and Friends whose lives have been touched. From the outbreak of the war, the IAS community has rallied to offer logistical assistance to scholars and their families affected by the violence. I am grateful to the Institute staff and our legal services for the expertise they have provided. Please know that we are available in any case of need.

By Angelos Chaniotis, Professor in the School of Historical Studies:

"The war in Ukraine has brought ghosts of the 20th century hovering over Europe: the leveling of cities by Russia, millions of Ukrainian refugees, the mass exodus of Russian dissidents to neighboring countries, the armaments race, and the risk of nuclear conflagration."

Helmer Herman Koppelman, past Member (2020–21) in the School of Natural Sciences, has received a 2022 MERAC Prize from the European Astronomical Society for his work in theoretical astrophysics, an exceptional honor for early-career scholars.

Sir John Huxtable Elliott, Professor in the School of Historical Studies from 1973–90, died at Oxford Hospital at age 91. He leaves a vast legacy of scholarship, beginning with his 1955 Ph.D. thesis, subsequently published under the title of The Revolt of the Catalans (1963).

"Just as there are von Neumann machines and von Neumann algebras, there are von Neumann anecdotes. Here’s a well-worn favorite. Late in the 1940s, years after he left Hungary for the United States and became a lionized mathematician, John von Neumann met a group of Rand Corporation scientists who wanted to use a computer he’d helped design."

By Adriana Petryna, past Member (2003–04) and Visitor (2006) in the School of Social Science:

"The Russian military’s capture of the Chernobyl nuclear facility in northern Ukraine last week led to heightened levels of both radioactivity and confusion. Since the infamous 1986 explosion at Chernobyl, which sent nuclear materials as high as five miles into the atmosphere and likely condemned far more people than the United Nations’ projected long-term death toll of 4,000, the plant has been radioactive. It’s defunct. Why would the Russian military want it?"

By Michael Walzer, Professor Emeritus in the School of Social Science:

"Condemnation has mostly been based on an entirely correct reading of international law. The Russian war is an unprovoked attack on a neighbor, an independent and sovereign state. It is clearly illegal. It is also, and this is more important, unjust."

Aaron Michael Butts, past Member (2019–20) and Visitor (2020–21) in the School of Historical Studies, has been named Andrew W. Mellon Chair of Early Christian Studies at his home institution, The Catholic University of America, where he is an associate professor in the Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures. 

Eight past Members in the School of Mathematics and the School of Natural Sciences are among the recipients of the 2022 Sloan Research Fellowships, a landmark honor for early-career scholars. 

Mimi Dai, von Neumann Fellow in the School of Mathematics and associate professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, has received the AMS Centennial Fellowship for the 2022–2023 academic year.

""Don’t let fear of getting sucked into a black hole keep you up at night, says Lia Medeiros, a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study; you’d have to get really close for that to happen."

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.

George Lusztig, past Distinguished Visiting Professor (1998–99) and past Member (1969–71, 1988, 2020) in the School of Mathematics, has won the 2022 Wolf Prize in Mathematics for his “groundbreaking contributions to representation theory and related areas.” 

Ronen Eldan, current von Neumann Fellow in the School of Mathematics, has received a 2022 Blavatnik Award for his profound contributions to statistics, machine learning, and theoretical computer science.

"In June, 1948, when I graduated from Princeton High School, I already had a job, as a night watchman at the Institute for Advanced Study, on the far side of town. All kinds of people assumed that the Institute was part of Princeton University, which it wasn’t and isn’t."

"I do not think that postmodernist and postcolonial analysis does away with metanarratives so much as demand a more searching scrutiny of their assumptions, implications and, in part, often concealed purposes."

"In this and other tales from the period, the color of the sultan’s skin has a deeper meaning: His black skin is a metaphor for his non-Christian soul, according to Cord Whitaker, associate professor of English at Wellesley College, a [M]ember of the Institute for Advanced Study, and one of the founding members of the Princeton collaboration."