Eva Silverstein is a string theorist. She is married to fellow string theorist Shamit Kachru. She and Kachru were both proteges of Edward Witten. She is best known for her work on tachyon condensation in string theory and resulting resolution of some spacetime singularities (with Adams, Polchinski, and others). Her 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), and the discovery of a predictive new mechanism for cosmic inflation involving D-brane dynamics (with Tong and Alishahiha).
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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-Present
Awards and honors
- MacArthur Fellow, 1999
- Bergmann Memorial Award, 1999
- DOE Outstanding Junior Investigator, 1999 - 2001
- Sloan Fellowship, 1999 - 2003
Research areas
String theory, gravity, and particle physics: including moduli stabilization, supersymmetry breaking, and the microphysics of dark energy in string theory; dynamics of interacting scalar fields in cosmology and particle physics; unification of string vacua, singularity resolution, and dualities.
