In response to a SUNY-wide New York State initiative, Stony Brook University is establishing a new Department of Technology, AI and Society, drawing on the wide experience and knowledge of Stony Brook faculty in the applications of artificial intelligence to scientific research. One of the areas in which AI holds great promise is in cosmology, where vast data sets will hold keys to the history of the universe. YITP cosmologist Vivian Miranda will serve on the university-wide committee that will map out a new graduate program, aimed at training "future leaders in the responsible shaping of the societal impact of artificial intelligence (AI)".
As a member of the Graduate Program Working Group, Vivian will represent the YITP and Physics and Astronomy in this truly interdisciplinary effort to organize the constructive implementation of humankind's evolving computational capabilities here at Stony Brook and in society beyond.
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The YITP is proud to have participated in the organization and presentation of Stony Brook University's celebration of the broad and deep impact of James Simons (1938 - 2024) on and beyond the campus. A full-day event was held at the Simons Center auditorium next door, with first-hand testimony from people who worked with Jim, videos that captured his commitment and wit, and a series of mini public lectures describing his mathematical discoveries and the wide-ranging research that his generosity made possible.
Yichul Choi received a 2024 President's Award for Distinguished Doctoral Students in recognition of "outstanding merit" for his dissertation research, Generalized Symmetries in Quantum Field Theory and Particle Physics. His doctoral research was supervised by Shu-Heng Shao and Zohar Komorgadski. The concept of generalized symmetries has a special resonance at the YITP, named for its founding director, the originator of the application of nonabelian symmetries to quantum field theory. Yichul has joined the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton as a Roger Dashen Member. Other YITP winners of Presidential Awards include Connor Behan (2019), Wolfger Peelars (2016), Mao Zeng (2016), Matt von Hippel (2014), Abhijit Gadde (2012), Leandro Almeida (2010) and Ilmo Sung (2010), Carola Berger (2003), Shu-Chiuan Chang, (2002), Gianluca Oderda (1999), Shan-Ho Tsai (1998) and Alexander Kusenko (1994).
2003 Nobel Laureate David Gross presented the 2024 Colloquium, the third in this annual series. In a wide-ranging review of the discovery and development of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), a cornerstone of the Standard Model of fundamental matter and forces. In a spirited presentation, Prof. Gross gave students, postdocs and faculty alike a first-hand perspective of the ideas and experiments that led to the threshold of the discovery of asymptotic freedom, the signature property of nonabelian gauge theories like QCD, and to the consequences that have flowed from that discovery. The colloquium was a standing-room only affair, capping a day of conversations, including a lunch with graduate students.