Eva Silverstein

Eva Silverstein (born October 24, 1970) is an American physicist, cosmologist, and string theorist. She is best known for her work on early universe cosmology, developing the structure of inflation and its range of signatures, as well as extensive contributions to string theory and gravitational physics. Her early work included control of tachyon condensation in string theory and resulting resolution of some spacetime singularities (with Adams, Polchinski, and others). Other significant research contributions include the construction of the first models of dark energy in string theory, some basic extensions of the AdS/CFT correspondence to more realistic field theories (with Kachru), as well as the discovery of a predictive new mechanism for cosmic inflation involving D-brane dynamics (with Tong and Alishahiha) which helped motivate more systematic analyses of primordial non-Gaussianity. Silverstein is a professor of physics at Stanford University and director of the Modern Inflationary Cosmology collaboration within the Simons Foundation Origins of the Universe initiative.

Education

I first became interested when I learned what physics was some time in high school. I had a very interesting high school physics teacher. I had always enjoyed math and physical science and when I saw the power of physics to explain and predict physical phenomena through simple principles and calculations, I became hooked. I was especially fascinated by special relativity, which starts from a simple physical principle that the speed of light, and in general all laws of nature, are the same in all reference frames, and derives through simple high school algebra amazing consequences such as the fact that time slows down in moving frames. When I realized that one could produce such things full time and actually make a living at it, I never really looked back.

— Eva Silverstein, quoted at String People

• A.B., Physics, Harvard University, 1992
• Ph.D., Physics, Princeton University, 1996

Professional academic history

• Postdoctoral Associate, Rutgers University, 1996–1997
• Assistant Professor, SLAC, Stanford, 1997–2001
• Associate Professor, SLAC and Stanford Physics Department, Stanford, 2001–2006
• Professor, SLAC and Stanford Physics Department, Stanford, 2006–2016
• Professor, Stanford Physics Department, Stanford, 2006–Present
• Professor, University of California Physics Department

Awards and honors

• MacArthur Fellow, 1999
• Bergmann Memorial Award, 1999
• DOE Outstanding Junior Investigator, 1999–2001
• Sloan Fellowship, 1999–2003
• APS Fellow, 2016 ``For fundamental contributions to quantum gravity and early universe cosmology."
• Simons Investigator, 2017

Research areas

What are the basic degrees of freedom and interactions underlying gravitational and particle physics? What is the mechanism behind the initial seeds of structure in the universe, and how can we test it using cosmological observations? Is there a holographic framework for cosmology that applies throughout the history of the universe, accounting for the effects of horizons and singularities? What new phenomena arise in quantum field theory in generic conditions such as finite density, temperature, or in time dependent backgrounds?

Personal

Raised in Spokane, Washington, Silverstein is the daughter of Harry S. and Lorinda Knight Silverstein and graduated from Lewis and Clark High School. Her father is a professor emeritus of philosophy at Washington State University in Pullman.

Silverstein is married to fellow string theorist Shamit Kachru; both were protégés of Edward Witten.

External links

• Stanford University: Eva Silverstein
• List of her papers