School of Humanities and Sciences


Showing 341-350 of 635 Results

  • Agripino S. Silveira

    Agripino S. Silveira

    Advanced Lecturer

    BioAgripino is as Advanced Lecturer in Portuguese at the Stanford Language Center. He earned his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of New Mexico with a research focus on “Subject Expression in Brazilian Portuguese.” Over the years, Agripino has made significant contributions to the field of linguistics and Portuguese language studies, with publications that include the "Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar" (co-authored) and several research articles in notable journals.

    In addition to his academic accomplishments, Agripino has a rich history of teaching, having been a faculty member at the Middlebury Language Schools and an ESL instructor at the University of New Mexico. He has also held administrative roles, including co-chairing the Portuguese Special Interest Group (SIG) and coordinating pronunciation courses at the Middlebury Portuguese Language School.

    Agripino's expertise is further highlighted by his role as a rater and tester of Oral Proficiency Interviews (OPIs) and as a rater of Written Proficiency Tests (WPTs), both in Portuguese.

    His professional affiliations include the American Organization of Teachers of Portuguese (AOTP), American Portuguese Studies Association (APSA), Linguistic Society of America (LSA), and the American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), among others.

  • Eva Silverstein

    Eva Silverstein

    Wells Family Director of the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics and Professor of Physics

    BioProfessor Silverstein conducts research in theoretical physics -- particularly gravitation and cosmology, as well as recently developing new methods and applications for machine learning.

    What are the basic degrees of freedom and interactions underlying gravitational and particle physics? What is the mechanism behind the initial seeds of structure in the universe, and how can we test it using cosmological observations? Is there a holographic framework for cosmology that applies throughout the history of the universe, accounting for the emergent effects of horizons and singularities? What new phenomena arise in quantum field theory in generic conditions such as finite density, temperature, or in time dependent backgrounds?

    Professor Silverstein attacks basic problems in several areas of theoretical physics. She develops concrete and testable mechanisms for cosmic inflation, accounting for its sensitivity to very high energy physics. This has led to a fruitful interface with cosmic microwave background research, contributing to a more systematic analysis of its observable phenomenology.
    Professor Silverstein also develops mechanisms for stabilizing the extra dimensions of string theory to model the accelerated expansion of the universe. In addition, Professor Silverstein develops methods to address questions of quantum gravity, such as singularity resolution and the physics of black hole and cosmological horizons.

    Areas of focus:
    - optimization algorithms derived from physical dynamics, analyzing its behavior and advantages theoretically and in numerical experiments
    - UV complete mechanisms and systematics of cosmic inflation, including string-theoretic versions of large-field inflation (with gravity wave CMB signatures) and novel mechanisms involving inflaton interactions (with non-Gaussian signatures in the CMB)
    -Systematic theory and analysis of primordial Non-Gaussianity, taking into account strongly non-linear effects in quantum field theory encoded in multi-point correlation functions 
    -Long-range interactions in string theory and implications for black hole physics
    - Concrete holographic models of de Sitter expansion in string theory, aimed at upgrading the AdS/CFT correspondence to cosmology
    - Mechanisms for non-Fermi liquid transport and $2k_F$ singularities from strongly coupled finite density quantum field theory
    - Mechanisms by which the extra degrees of freedom in string theory induce transitions and duality symmetries between spaces of different topology and dimensionality

  • Jon Simon

    Jon Simon

    Associate Professor of Physics and Applied Physics

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsJon's group focuses on exploring synthetic quantum matter using the unique tools available through quantum and classical optics. We typically think of photons as non-interacting, wave-like particles. By harnessing recent innovations in Rydberg-cavity- and circuit- quantum electrodynamics, the Simonlab is able to make photons interact strongly with one another, mimicking collisions between charged electrons. By confining these photons in ultra-low-loss metamaterial structures, the teams "teach" the photons to behave as though they have mass, are in traps, and are experiencing magnetic fields, all by using the structures to tailor the optical dispersion. In total, this provides a unique platform to explore everything from Weyl-semi-metals, to fractional quantum hall puddles, to Mott insulators and quantum dots, all made of light.

    The new tools developed in this endeavor, from twisted fabry-perot resonators, to Rydberg atom ensembles, Floquet-modulated atoms, and coupled cavity optical mode converters, have broad applications in information processing and communication. Indeed, we are now commissioning a new experiment aimed at interconverting optical and mm-wave photons using Rydberg atoms inside of crossed optical and superconducting millimeter resonators as the transducer.

  • Michael Simon

    Michael Simon

    Professor of Biology

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsPlanar cell polarity, cell shape and mobility, and control of cell fate