Professor Lisa Randall studies particle physics and cosmology at Harvard University, where she is Professor of Theoretical Physics.
Andrew Strominger has a long-standing connection to Harvard, says Professor Randall, reaching back to his days as an undergraduate at the college. Now a physics professor and a senior fellow at the University, with a "robust group of students and post-docs," it's all in the family for Strominger: His father is also a professor, and his daughter is now a student.
But it is Professor Strominger's intellectual prowess in physics, particularly string theory, that has made him known beyond the campus. While researching her own book, Professor Randall says she was constantly amazed at how often Strominger's name came up in the context of important string theory breakthroughs. He took part in developments that led to the original string theory "revolution," when scientists first became convinced that string theory might help explain the natural world. He also contributed to the second string theory revolution, when the importance of a concept known as branes became apparent. And Randall considers Strominger's work on the degrees of freedom in black holes to be one of the "most important affirmations that string theory has something to do with quantum gravity." As she points out, this is one of string theory's claims to fame: that it can unify quantum mechanics and general relativity. This topic is the central tenet for the lecture.