The University of Toronto is lucky enough to have an exciting collection of speakers lined up already.
Pawel Artymowicz
Pawel Artymowicz recieved his PhD from Warsaw and a Docent from Stockholm University before returning to Warsaw for his Habilitation. Artymowicz has done research around the world, from the N.Copernicus Astronomical Center in Poland to the Space Telescope Science Institute at John Hopkins. Until 2005 he was a tenured Associate Professor at Stockholm Observatory and now Artymowicz is a tenured professor at the University of Toronto, splitting his time between the Dept of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the St. George (downtown) campus, and Department of Physical and Envir. Sciences of UTSC (U of T at Scarborough). He is a multiple research grant recipient, including a $96K, NSERC Discovery Grant and Hubble Fellowship (NASA funded). Artymowicz researches the birth and evolution of binary stars and planetary systems, dynamics of astrophysical disks, physics of circumstellar dust, with occasional diversions to binary black holes and AGNs, where his papers receive an above-average number of citations, and, previous to his post at UofT, he was the most cited astronomer in Stockholm. He also leads a group studying the Theory of Planetary Systems. Artymowicz also enjoys giving popular talks and is the author of the widely sited online astrophysics resource, Planetary systems and their changing theories.
Daniel F. V. James
Daniel James was born in Manchester, in northwest England, in 1964. He was educated at the Manchester Grammar School (1975-82), New College, Oxford (1983-86) and at The Institute of Optics, University of Rochester (1986-92), where he earned his Ph.D. in Optics in 1992 under the tutelage of Prof. Emil Wolf. From 1994 until 2005 James was a staff member in group T-4 (Atomic and Optical Theory), Los Alamos National Laboratory. He joined the faculty of the University of Toronto in September, 2005. His group at UofT conducts theoretical physics research in quantum and classical optics focussing on the development of technologies intended to exploit fundamental quantum-mechanical phenomena such as entanglement for communications, computation and metrology. James also works on advanced imaging techniques, coherence theory and the diffraction of light. He currently holds numerous prestigous grants, including grants from the Department of Defense and the U.S. Army Research Office for his research in Quantum Computing and Quantum Information along with an NSERC Discovery grant for Effective Hamiltonians and Quantum Simulators.Lawrence M. Krauss
Prof. Lawrence M. Krauss is Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and the Physics Dept, Co-Director of the Cosmology Initiative, and Inaugural Director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University. Origins will involve a new and wide ranging interdisciplinary research, teaching, and outreach program focusing on all aspects of origins, from the origins of the cosmos to human origins, to the origins of consciousness and culture. Until Aug 2008 Krauss was Ambrose Swasey Professor of Physics, Professor of Astronomy, and Director of the Center for Education and Research at Case Western Reserve University. He is an internationally known theoretical physicist with wide research interests, including the interface between elementary particle physics and cosmology, where his studies include the early universe, the nature of dark matter, general relativity and neutrino astrophysics. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982 then joined the Harvard Society of Fellows. In 1985 he joined the faculty of Physics at Yale University, and moved to take his CWRU in 1993. From 1993 to 2005 he also served as Chairman of the Physics Department at Case, where his achievements included building one of the top particle astrophysics programs in the country, and the creation of a novel Master's Program in Physics Entrepreneurship. Krauss received his PhD from MIT in 1982 and then joined the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. He was appointed as a professor of physics and astronomy at Yale University in 1985, and then joined Case as Chair of Physics in 1993, a position he held until 2005. During this period he built an internationally ranked research center, and created such novel new programs as the Physics Entrepreneurship Masters Program. In September 2008 he will take up a new post as Foundation Professor and Director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University. The author of 7 popular books including international bestseller, The Physics of Star Trek, and the award winning, Atom, and his newest book, Hiding in the Mirror: The Mysterious Allure of Extra Dimensions from Plato to String Theory and Beyond, Krauss is also a regular radio commentator and essayist for newspapers such as the New York Times, and appears regularly on television. Krauss is one of the few well known scientists today described by such magazines as Scientific American as a public intellectual, and with activities including performing with the Cleveland Orchestra, being a judge at the Sundance Film Festival, and his Grammy nominated notes for Telarc Records, he has also crossed the chasm between science and popular culture. At the same time he is a highly regarded international leader in cosmology and astrophysics, and is the author of over 250 scientific papers, winner of numerous international awards for his research accomplishments and his writing (he is, for example, the only physicist to have been awarded the highest awards of the American Physical Society, the American Association of Physics Teachers, and the American Institute of Physics) and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has been particularly active in issues of science and society, leading the effort by scientists to defend the teaching of science in public schools, and to help define the proper limits of both science and religion, as well as defending scientific integrity in government. His essay in the New York Times on Evolution and Intelligent Design in May 2005 helped spur a recent controversy that has helped refine the Catholic Church's position on evolution. Most recently he has led the call for a Presidential Debate on Science and Technology. (Media Bio provided by: http://www.phys.cwru.edu/~krauss)
Robert Orr
Robert Orr was born in Iran, and grew up in Scotland and South Wales. His father and uncles were all engineers in the ship building industry. His interest in physics was sparked early in his childhood by trying to make sense of his father’s textbooks. “Ever since I was a child, I took things apart to see how they worked” says Orr. “Doing that with matter is the ultimate challenge.” At present he is a Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Toronto. He was NSERC Principal Investigator for ATLAS Canada from 1994 to 2007. ATLAS is a detector within the LHC at CERN. Orr earned his B.Sc. and Ph.D. at Imperial College, University of London, UK, and was a Post Doctoral Researcher at Rutherford Laboratory, also in the UK, as well as at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA. From 1974 to 1981 he was a CERN Fellow and Staff Physicist. He came to Canada in 1981 as an Institute of Particle Physics Research Scientist, and became a member of the faculty at the University of Toronto in 1989. Orr has worked at many of the world’s particle physics labs in the USA, Germany and Japan. He has a particular interest in the application of large scale computing clusters in this field, and in the development of new finds of detection devices. (Brief biography thanks to the Perimeter Institute)
John Polanyi (Nobel Laureate)
John Charles Polanyi, educated at Manchester University, England, was a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University, U.S.A. and the National Research Council, Canada. He is presently a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Toronto. His research is on the molecular motions in chemical reactions in gases and at surfaces. He is a Fellow of the Royal Societies of Canada (F.R.S.C.), of London (F.R.S.), and of Edinburgh (F.R.S.E.), also of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Pontifical Academy of Rome and the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada (P.C.), and a Companion of the Order of Canada (C.C.). His awards include the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the Royal Medal of the Royal Society of London, and over thirty honorary degrees from six countries. He has served on the Prime Minister of Canada's Advisory Board on Science and Technology, the Premier's Council of Ontario, as Foreign Honorary Advisor to the Institute for Molecular Sciences, Japan, and as Honorary Advisor to the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, Germany. He was a founding member of both the Committee on Scholarly Freedom of the Royal Society, and a further international human rights organization, the Canadian Committee for Scientists and Scholars, of which he is the current President. Additionally he was the founding Chairman of the Canadian Pugwash Group in 1960, and has been active for 40 years in International Pugwash. He has written extensively on science policy, the control of armaments, and peacekeeping. He is co-editor of a book, The Dangers of Nuclear War, and was a participant in the recent 'Canada 21' study of a 21st-century defence posture for Canada. He was co-chair (with Sir Brian Urquhart) of the Department of Foreign Affairs International Consultative Committee on a Rapid Response Capability for the United Nations. (Biographical sketch from: http://www.utoronto.ca/jpolanyi/profile/)
Lee Smolin
Lee Smolin was born in New York City in 1955 and raised there and in Cincinnati. After leaving high school early, he attended Hampshire College and the University of Cincinnati, graduating from Hampshire in 1975 with a degree in Physics and Philosophy. He attended Harvard University for graduate school receiving a Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1979. He held postdoctoral positions at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, The Institute for Theoretical Physics (now KITP) in Santa Barbara and the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago. This was followed by faculty positions at Yale, Syracuse and Penn State Universities, where he helped to found the Center for Gravitational Physics and Geometry. He also held visiting positions at varioous times at Cambridge and Oxford Universities and at SISSA and the Universities of Rome and Trento in Italy. He was a Visiting Professor at Imperial College from 1999 to 2001. In September of 2001 he moved to Canada to be a founding member of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, where he has been ever since. Lee's main contributions to research are so far to the field of quantum gravity. He was, with Abhay Ashtekar and Carlo Rovelli, a founder of the approach known as loop quantum gravity, but he has contributed to other approaches including string theory and causal dynamical triangulations. He is also known for proposing the notion of the landscape of theories, based on his application of Darwinian methods to Cosmology. He has contributed also to the foundations of quantum mechanics, elementary particle phyiscs and theoretical biology. He also has a strong interest in philosophy and his three books, Life of the Cosmos, Three Roads to Quantum Gravity and The Trouble with Physics are in part philosophical explorations of issues raised by contemporary physics. (Bio from: http://www.leesmolin.com/)
