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Harvard Physics Professor Randall to kick off Furman Engaged!

Photo by Jack R. Lindholm


Last updated April 3, 2014

By Tina Underwood

Photo by Jack R. Lindholm

Photo by Jack R. Lindholm

Harvard University Physics Professor and award-winning author Lisa Randall, Ph.D., will speak on the Furman University campus Thursday, April 10 at 7 p.m. in Watkins Room of the Trone Student Center.

Her talk, “Religion and Science in the Modern World,” is free and open to the public. Her presentation opens Furman Engaged! which takes place the following day, Friday, April 11. The event showcases all forms of engaged learning – student research, creative activity, performances, internships, study away and service learning – spanning the natural sciences, social sciences and arts and humanities.

Dr. Randall studies theoretical particle physics and cosmology at Harvard. Her research connects theoretical insights to puzzles in our current understanding of the properties and interactions of matter. She has developed and studied a wide variety of models to address these questions, the most prominent involving extra dimensions of space. Randall’s current research focuses extensively on the Large Hadron Collider and dark matter searches and models in her quest to explore ways to experimentally test and verify ideas.

Randall’s books, Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions, and Knocking on Heaven’s Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World, were both on the New York Times list of 100 Notable Books of the Year. Higgs Discovery: The Power of Empty Space was released as a Kindle Single in the summer of 2012 as an update with recent particle physics developments. Selected books by Randall will be available for sale following her lecture.

Randall’s studies have made her among the most cited and influential theoretical physicists. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a past winner of an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship, a National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award, a DOE Outstanding Junior Investigator Award, and the Westinghouse Science Talent Search.

Randall was named among Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” of 2007 and, in the same year, was one of 40 people featured in Rolling Stone’s 40th Anniversary issue. Randall was featured in Newsweek’s “Who’s Next in 2006” as “one of the most promising theoretical physicists of her generation,” and in Seed Magazine’s “2005 Year in Science Icons.” In 2008, Randall was among Esquire Magazine’s “75 Most Influential People.”

Randall earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University and held professorships at MIT and Princeton University before returning to Harvard in 2001, where she is the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science.

For more information about the event, contact the Furman News and Information Office, 864-294-3107.

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