Can you tell us a bit about your career so far?
I completed my PhD in Physics in 2016 at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, with a dissertation titled ‘Higher-dimensional field theories from type II supergravity’. I then moved to the Technion in Israel as a postdoc for three years (2016-2019). I subsequently won a three-year (2019-2022) Marie SkÅ‚odowska-Curie Fellowship, co-held at the University of Milano-Bicocca and INFN Milano-Bicocca (where I was appointed fixed-term researcher). I later moved to Uppsala University (2022-2023) in Sweden for a final postdoc, before joining the University of º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½ as lecturer. During my postdoc years I held several visiting positions (UCSB, US; Weizmann, Israel; SISSA, Italy; Nordita, Sweden). In 2018 I was awarded the Solvay Awards 2016 for an outstanding dissertation in the sciences, and a Jacob Shaham Fellowship Fund gift by the Aspen Center for Physics.
What sort of topics have you been working on as a researcher? Can you describe one of your main research topics?
I am a theoretical physicist interested in the mathematical modelling of high-energy processes. I specialize in string theory and quantum field theory. The latter are powerful theoretical frameworks which should be thought of as theories of theories (rather than comprising a single model). As a side hustle, I sometimes study (and use) mathematics, in particular algebraic and differential geometry, whose results and techniques feature prominently in string theory. A research topic I am passionate about is the string theory realization of holography known as AdS/CFT correspondence. Holography is an old concept of quantum gravity, positing that the gravitational degrees of freedom of a system can equivalently be described by a non-gravitational theory (such as a special quantum field theory) defined only on the boundary (rather than the interior) of the system. As a corollary to this, I have used AdS/CFT to define and count the so-called microstates (or quantum microscopic degrees of freedom) of special classes of black holes using powerful enumeration formulae valid in the ‘holographic dual’ quantum field theory. I also obtained results for rather exotic quantum field theories known as superconformal theories in dimensions 3, 4, and 6, culminating in the proof of (a version of the) ‘a-theorem’.
What made you want to join the School of Mathematics and Statistics at º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½?
The School hosts two strong internationally renowned groups (algebraic geometry and mathematical physics, gravitation and cosmology) with a high degree of overlap with my own research interests. One of my most recent endeavours was to utilize modern results in algebraic geometry to say something general about AdS/CFT and when it makes sense to speak about string theory on singular varieties. Another was to use AdS/CFT to enumerate the black hole microstates. This sort of cross-fertilization of ideas and topics, as well as the presence of strong research-focused groups, is what I looked for in a academic institution.