Location
Age
Area of FocusAbout Stephen's Work
Stephen Shenker is a theoretical physicist who has derived new insights by relating the physics of condensed matter and elementary particles.
Shenker has done basic work on the behavior of gauge theories interacting with matter, and has been one of the leaders in developing techniques to study two-dimensional phase transitions. This work is crucial for the understanding of string theory, which unifies Einstein’s gravity theory with quantum mechanics. He has pioneered, with others, exact solutions of simple models of string theory. This work has yielded the first information about the nonperturbative behavior of string theory and provides compelling evidence for the emergent nature of quantum gravity. More recently he has found evidence for new, short-distance structure in string theory.
Biography
Shenker is the Richard Herschel Weiland Professor in the Department of Physics at Stanford University, where he also serves as director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics. He taught previously at Rutgers University (1989-1998) and at the University of Chicago (1981-1989).
Shenker received a B.A. (1975) from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. (1980) from Cornell University.
Last updated January 1, 2005.
Published on July 1, 1987
