School of Humanities and Sciences
Showing 1-10 of 1,447 Results
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Tom Abel
Professor of Particle Physics and Astrophysics and of Physics
BioWhat were the first objects that formed in the Universe, what is it made of, how does it work? Prof. Abel's group explores all of cosmic history using ab initio supercomputer calculations. He has shown from first principles that the very first luminous objects are very massive stars and has developed novel numerical algorithms using adaptive-mesh-refinement simulations that capture over 14 orders of magnitude in length and time scales. He has shown how the first stars galaxies form and affect everything that follows later. He has been pioneering novel numerical algorithms to study collisionless fluids such as dark matter as well as astrophysical and terrestrial plasmas. He has designed bespoke summary statistics to have interpretable, robust, efficient, summary statistics to describe spatial clustering based on fast nearest neighbor searches. His recent work is on creating digital twins of astronomical objects and the Universe as a whole in the context of the Center for Decoding the Universe. This Center leverages advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence to make sense of our Universe. He was the director of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology and Division Director at SLAC 2013-2018.
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Ran Abramitzky
Senior Associate Dean for Social Sciences, Stanford Federal Credit Union Professor of Economics, and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
BioRan Abramitzky is the Stanford Federal Credit Union Professor of Economics and the Senior Associate Dean of the Social Sciences at Stanford University. His research is in economic history and applied microeconomics, with focus on immigration and income inequality. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. He is the former co-editor of Explorations in Economic History. His awards include the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, and grants from the National Science Foundation and the Russell Sage Foundation. His first book, The Mystery of the Kibbutz: Egalitarian Principles in a Capitalist World (Princeton University Press, 2018) was awarded by the Economic History Association the Gyorgi Ranki Biennial Prize for an outstanding book on European Economic History. His new book (with Leah Boustan) is Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant Success (PublicAffairs 2022). He has received the Economics Department’s and the Dean’s Awards for Distinguished Teaching. He holds a PhD in economics from Northwestern University.
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Avidit Acharya
Professor of Political Science, by courtesy, of Political Economics at the Graduate School of Business and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
BioAvi Acharya is a professor of political science at Stanford University; a professor, by courtesy, of political economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business; and senior fellow, by courtesy, at the Hoover Institution. He works in the fields of political economy and formal political theory.
His first book, Deep Roots: How Slavery Still Shapes Southern Politics (Princeton University Press, 2018) explores the lasting impact of slavery as an institution on political attitudes in the American South. His second book, The Cartel System of States: An Economic Theory of International Politics (Oxford University Press, 2023), provides a new understanding of the territorial state system as it developed through time and exists today.
His papers have been published in both economics and political science journals and have received awards such as the Elinor Ostrom best paper award, the Gosnell Prize in political methodology, and the Joseph Bernd best paper award. He is an editor at the journal Social Choice and Welfare and an advisory editor at Games and Economic Behavior.
He earned a PhD in political economy from Princeton University in 2012 and a BA in economics and mathematics from Yale University in 2006. Before joining the Stanford faculty, he taught in the economics and political science departments of the University of Rochester. -
James L. Adams
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsI have for some time been working on two books. The working title for one is Making, Fixing, and Tinkering, and it concerns the benefits of working with the hands. The other has a working title of Homo Demi Sapiens, and is about the balance of creativity and control in very large groups (societies, religions, etc.). I am also revising a book entitled The Building of an Engineer, which I wrote for my aging mother and self-published. It is somewhat autobiographical, and although it is available on Amazon, I do not consider it quite ready for public reading.
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Rotimi Agbabiaka
Lecturer
BioRotimi Agbabiaka is an actor, director, writer, corporate coach, and teacher of acting, solo performance, and theatre-making. Most recently, Rotimi played the EmCee in Cabaret (Center Repertory Company), Hook in Peter Pan (Panto In The Presidio), Oberon and Theseus in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Folger Theatre, Washington D.C.), and Cellphone/Narrator in If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhf*cka (Playwrights Horizons, Off-Broadway).
Other acting credits include roles at Yale Repertory Theatre, American Conservatory Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, California Shakespeare Theater, Marin Theatre Company, Shotgun Players, and TheatreWorks. Rotimi is a company member of Word for Word, Black Artists Contemporary Cultural Experience (BACCE), the Tony Award-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe; and is a resident artist at Brava Theater Center and the Magic Theatre.
Rotimi most recently directed The Tempest (San Francisco Shakespeare Festival), The Red Shades: A Trans Superhero Rock Opera (Z Space); and assistant directed the opera Harvey Milk Reimagined (Opera Parallèle).
As a playwright, Rotimi penned and toured the solo shows Homeless, Type/Caste (Theatre Bay Area award), and MANIFESTO; the musical, Seeing Red—co-written with Joan Holden and Ira Marlowe and produced by the San Francisco Mime Troupe; and workshopped a new play, The Soul Never Dwells In A Dry Place, inspired by the art of Romare Bearden, at Cutting Ball Theater in 2024.
Rotimi has taught acting, movement, and play creation at the Yale School of Drama, Middlebury College, Bennington College, Southern Illinois University, the California Institute of Integral Studies, and American Conservatory Theatre, among others. Rotimi trained at the Moscow Art Theatre, received an MFA in Acting from Northern Illinois University, and has presented work at museums (the deYoung), in parks (with We Players), on street corners (with Jess Curtis’s GRAVITY), and on nightlife stages around the world (as alter ego Miss Cleo Patois).
