School of Humanities and Sciences
Showing 1-10 of 72 Results
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Shamit Kachru
Professor of Physics and Director, Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics, Emeritus
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy current research is focused in three directions:
— Mathematical aspects of string theory (with a focus on BPS state counts, black holes, and moonshine)
— Quantum field theory approaches to condensed matter physics (with a focus on physics of non-Fermi liquids)
— Theoretical biology, with a focus on evolution and ecology -
Michael Kahan
Senior Lecturer of Sociology
Current Research and Scholarly Interests19th and 20th Century Urban and Social History; Street Life; Urban Space
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Colin Kahl
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science
BioColin Kahl is the Steven C. Házy Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), an interdisciplinary research hub in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is also the faculty director of CISAC’s Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance, and a professor of political science (by courtesy).
From April 2021-July 2023, Dr. Kahl served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy at the U.S. Department of Defense. In that role, he was the principal adviser to the Secretary of Defense for all matters related to national security and defense policy and represented the Department as a standing member of the National Security Council Deputies’ Committee. He oversaw the writing of the 2022 National Defense Strategy, which focused the Pentagon’s efforts on the “pacing challenge” posed by the PRC, and he led the Department’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and numerous other international crises. He also led several other major defense diplomacy initiatives, including: an unprecedented strengthening of the NATO alliance; the negotiation of the AUKUS agreement with Australia and the United Kingdom; historic defense force posture enhancements in Australia, Japan, and the Philippines; and deepening defense and strategic ties with India. In June 2023, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III awarded Dr. Kahl the Department of Defense Distinguished Public Service Medal, the highest civilian award presented by the Secretary of Defense.
During the Obama Administration, Dr. Kahl served as Deputy Assistant to President Obama and National Security Advisor to the Vice President Biden from October 2014 to January 2017. He also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East from February 2009 to December 2011, for which he received the Outstanding Public Service Medal in July 2011.
Dr. Kahl is the co-author (along with Thomas Wright) of Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2021) and the author States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife in the Developing World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006). He has also published numerous article on U.S. national security and defense policy in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Security, the Los Angeles Times, Middle East Policy, the National Interest, the New Republic, the New York Times, Politico, the Washington Post, and the Washington Quarterly, as well as several reports for the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a non-partisan think tank in Washington, DC.
Dr. Kahl previously taught at Georgetown University and the University of Minnesota, and he has held fellowship positions at Harvard University, the Council on Foreign Relations, CNAS, and the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and International Engagement.
He received his B.A. in political science from the University of Michigan (1993) and his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University (2000). -
Renata Kallosh
Stanford W. Ascherman, MD Professor, Emerita
BioWhat is the mathematical structure of supergravity/string theory and its relation to cosmology?
Professor Kallosh works on the general structure of supergravity and string theory and their applications to cosmology. Her main interests are related to the models early universe inflation and dark energy in string theory. She develops string theory models explaining the origin of the universe and its current acceleration. With her collaborators, she has recently constructed de Sitter supergravity, which is most suitable for studies of inflation and dark energy and spontaneously broken supersymmetry.
She is analyzing possible consequences of the expected new data from current and future cosmological observations, including LiteBIRD satellite CMB data. These results may affect the relationship between superstring theory and supergravity, and the real world. Professor Kallosh works, in particular, on future tests of string theory by CMB data and effective supergravity models with flexible amplitude of gravitational waves produced during inflation. -
Matthew Kanan
Professor of Chemistry and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy
BioMatt Kanan is a Professor of Chemistry and Director of the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy at Stanford. Matt’s research group addresses challenges in energy conversion, sustainable resource utilization, and carbon dioxide removal. Their work has led to several inventions in these areas, including process technology that utilizes CO2 to streamline chemical production, metal-free CO2 hydrogenation catalysts that improve the efficiency of sustainable fuel synthesis, membrane-free electrochemical systems to generate acid and base from water, and thermochemical methods to activate silicate rocks for CO2 removal. Matt is the co-founder and Chief Scientific Advisor for ReSource Chemical Corp., an Oakland-based start-up commercializing a process created in his group to produce performance-advantaged plastics from CO2 and inedible biomass. At the TomKat Center, Matt directs programs that help Stanford students and researchers develop and commercialize innovations that impact energy and sustainability. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty in 2009, Matt did his Ph.D. studies in organic chemistry at Harvard and postdoctoral research at MIT in inorganic chemistry. He earned his B.A. in chemistry from Rice University in 2000.
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Roanne Kantor
Assistant Professor of English
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsGlobal Anglophone literature and its relationship to other literary traditions of the Global South. The conditions for interdisciplinary research in the humanities, especially literature's relationship with medicine and the social sciences.
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Aharon Kapitulnik
Theodore and Sydney Rosenberg Professor of Applied Physics and Professor of Physics
On Leave from 01/01/2025 To 06/30/2025BioAharon Kapitulnik is the Theodore and Sydney Rosenberg Professor in Applied Physics at the Departments of Applied Physics and Physics at Stanford University. His research focuses on experimental condensed matter physics, while opportunistically, also apply his methods to tabletop experimental studies of fundamental phenomena in physics. His recent studies cover a broad spectrum of phenomena associated with the behavior of correlated and disordered electron systems, particularly in reduced dimensions, and the development of effective instrumentation to detect subtle signatures of physical phenomena.
Among other recognitions, his activities earned him the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (1986-90), a Presidential Young Investigator Award (1987-92), a Sackler Scholar at Tel-Aviv University (2006), the Heike Kamerlingh Onnes Prize for Superconductivity Experiment (2009), a RTRA (Le Triangle de la Physique) Senior Chair (2010), and the Oliver Buckley Condensed Matter Prize of the American Physical Society (2015). Aharon Kapitulnik is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Kapitulnik holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Tel-Aviv University (1984). -
Jarosław Kapuściński
Associate Professor of Music
On Leave from 10/01/2024 To 06/30/2025BioJarosław Kapuściński is an intermedia composer and pianist born in Poland. He studied piano and composition at the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw and furthered his education in multimedia and intermedia art during doctoral studies at the University of California, San Diego, and a residency at Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada.
Kapuściński presented his works at numerous gallery and concert venues worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, National Arts Centre in Canada, EMPAC, ZKM and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. He has also received awards for his intermedia art at the UNESCO Film sur l'Art Festival in Paris, the VideoArt Festival in Locarno, and the International Festival of New Cinema and New Media in Montréal.
Apart from his career as a composer and performer, Kapuściński is also an educator. He has lectured internationally and held positions at institutions such as McGill University in Montreal and the Conservatory of Music at the University of the Pacific. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Composition at Stanford University.
