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Very rubin observatory, Credit: Rubin Obs/NSF/AURA

First Emmy Noether fellows announced

Perimeter Institute is pleased to announce its first appointments to the Emmy Noether Fellows program, Claudia de Rham and Sara Pasquetti.

The Fellowships bring exceptional early career physicists to Perimeter for periods of three months to a year. They will enable Fellows to pursue their research within Perimeter’s stimulating environment and to interact closely with other members of Perimeter’s research community.

Perimeter Director Neil Turok commented, “International Women’s Day provides the perfect occasion to announce our first Emmy Noether Fellows. Both are stellar young physicists with superb technical skills who have made significant discoveries in their research to date. We hope that their Emmy Noether Fellowships will help them to fulfill their exceptional promise.”

Turok delivered the announcement at “Women and Physics: Past, Present, and Future,” a conference held at Perimeter highlighting important contributions women have made to physics and exploring challenges and opportunities for women in physics at various stages of their careers.

The Fellowships are named for Amalie Emmy Noether, an influential 20th century German mathematician known for her ground-breaking contributions to theoretical physics as well as abstract algebra. Noether was described by Albert Einstein as “the most important woman in the history of mathematics.” 

Portait of Claudia de Rham
Claudia de Rham

Claudia de Rham is an Assistant Professor of Physics at Case Western Reserve University. She is a cosmologist working on very early universe cosmology and dark energy. Her recent work includes giving the graviton a mass. This has led to new developments in theories which modify gravity at large distances and could play a crucial role in understanding the nature of dark energy and tackling the cosmological constant problem. Prior to her appointment at Case Western, de Rham was an assistant professor at Geneva University, a joint postdoctoral researcher at Perimeter Institute and McMaster University, and a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University. She obtained her PhD in 2005 from the University of Cambridge. 

Sara Pasquetti in front of a Blackboard
Sara Pasquetti

Sara Pasquetti is a Lecturer in Physics at the University of Surrey. Her research interests lie at the interface between physics and mathematics. In particular, Pasquetti is interested in the relation between gauge theories, conformal field theory (CFT), and geometry. In recent years, she has combined supersymmetric localization and topological string methods to develop new tools for the study of supersymmetric gauge theories in various dimensions, in the presence of defect operators and CFT correlators. Prior to joining the University of Surrey, Pasquetti was a Marie Curie Fellow at Queen Mary University of London (2010-12), a Fellow in the Theory Division at CERN (2008-10), and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Neuchatel (2007-08). She obtained her PhD from the University of Parma in 2007.  

About PI

Perimeter Institute is the world’s largest research hub devoted to theoretical physics. The independent Institute was founded in 1999 to foster breakthroughs in the fundamental understanding of our universe, from the smallest particles to the entire cosmos. Research at Perimeter is motivated by the understanding that fundamental science advances human knowledge and catalyzes innovation, and that today’s theoretical physics is tomorrow’s technology. Located in the Region of Waterloo, the not-for-profit Institute is a unique public-private endeavour, including the Governments of Ontario and Canada, that enables cutting-edge research, trains the next generation of scientific pioneers, and shares the power of physics through award-winning educational outreach and public engagement. 

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