| Shamit Kachru | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1970 Champaign, Illinois |
| Residence | USA |
| Nationality | Indian American |
| Fields | Physicist |
| Institutions | Stanford University |
| Alma mater | Princeton University |
| Doctoral advisor | Edward Witten |
| Known for | String theory duality, AdS/CFT Correspondence |
| Notable awards | Department of Energy Outstanding Junior Investigator Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, a David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship, the Bergmann Memorial Award, and the ACIPA Outstanding Young Physicist Prize. |
Shamit Kachru (Kashmiri: शमित काचरू (Devanagari), شمت کاچرو (Nastaleeq)) (born 1970 in Champaign, Illinois) is a string theorist who is a professor of physics at Stanford University and at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). He is the son of the Indian Kashmiri scholar Braj Kachru. He is married to Eva Silverstein, who is also a professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University and at SLAC. Kachru is an award-winning physicist and an expert in string theory and quantum field theory,[1] and their applications in cosmology, condensed matter physics, and elementary particle theory. He has made central contributions to the study of compactifications of string theory from ten to four dimensions, especially in the exploration of mechanisms which could yield string models of dark energy or cosmic inflation.
He has also made notable contributions to the discovery and exploration of string dualities, to the study of models of supersymmetry breaking in string theory, and to the construction of calculable dual descriptions of strongly-coupled particle physics and condensed matter systems using the AdS/CFT correspondence.
Kachru, a Professor of Physics at Stanford University, is a recipient of a Department of Energy Outstanding Junior Investigator Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, a David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship, the Bergmann Memorial Award, and the ACIPA Outstanding Young Physicist Prize.
Kachru graduated from University High School in Urbana, Illinois and from Harvard University before obtaining a doctorate in physics from Princeton University under the supervision of Edward Witten. Kachru was a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and a postdoctoral fellow at Rutgers University.
Kachru is best known for his extensive work on stabilizing the extra dimensions of string theory, in particular finding (along with Renata Kallosh, Andrei Linde, and Sandip Trivedi) the first models of accelerated expansion of the universe in low energy supersymmetric string compactifications.
He has also made notable contributions to string theory duality (with Cumrun Vafa), the AdS/CFT correspondence (with Eva Silverstein), and to the construction of models of cosmic inflation in string theory.