School of Humanities and Sciences


Showing 11-15 of 15 Results

  • Savas Dimopoulos

    Savas Dimopoulos

    Hamamoto Family Professor

    BioWhat is the origin of mass? Are there other universes with different physical laws?

    Professor Dimopoulos has been searching for answers to some of the deepest mysteries of nature. Why is gravity so weak? Do elementary particles have substructure? What is the origin of mass? Are there new dimensions? Can we produce black holes in the lab?

    Elementary particle physics is entering a spectacular new era in which experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN will soon shed light on such questions and lead to a new deeper theory of particle physics, replacing the Standard Model proposed forty years ago. The two leading candidates for new theories are the Supersymmetric Standard Model and theories with Large Extra Dimensions, both proposed by Professor Dimopoulos and collaborators.

    Professor Dimopoulos is collaborating on a number of experiments that use the dramatic advances in atom interferometry to do fundamental physics. These include testing Einstein’s theory of general relativity to fifteen decimal precision, atom neutrality to thirty decimals, and looking for modifications of quantum mechanics. He is also designing an atom-interferometric gravity-wave detector that will allow us to look at the universe with gravity waves instead of light, marking the dawn of gravity wave astronomy and cosmology.

  • Chunyang Ding

    Chunyang Ding

    Ph.D. Student in Physics, admitted Summer 2023

    BioChunyang Ding is a physicist working on novel implementations of quantum computing, currently living in Redwood City, CA. He graduated from Yale University with a B.S. in Physics (Intensive), and had worked in the labs of Professors Michel Devoret (superconducting qubits, microwave resonators), Nir Navon (ultracold atoms, MOT for Potassium), and Marla Geha (satelite galaxies, statistical analysis). He was previously an associate physicist at IonQ, a trapped ion quantum computing startup associated with Chris Monroe and Jungsang Kim, and is now a PhD student at Stanford/University of Chicago, working on novel fluxonium gate schemes in the lab of Professor David Schuster.

  • Persis Drell

    Persis Drell

    Provost, Emerita, James and Anna Marie Spilker Professor, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and of Physics

    BioPersis Drell is the James and Anna Marie Spilker Professor in the School of Engineering, a professor of materials science and engineering, and a professor of physics. From Feb 1, 2017 to Sept. 30, 2023, Drell was the provost of Stanford University.

    Prior to her appointment as provost in February 2017, she was dean of the Stanford School of Engineering from 2014 to 2017 and director of U.S. Department of Energy SLAC National Acceleratory Laboratory from 2007 to 2012.

    She earned her bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics from Wellesley College and her PhD in atomic physics from UC Berkeley. Before joining the faculty at Stanford in 2002, she was a faculty member in the physics department at Cornell University for 14 years.