Brian Greene

One of the world’s foremost string theorists, Brian Greene is widely known for his contributions to physics, including the discoveries of mirror symmetry and spacetime topology change. Since 1996 he has been a professor at Columbia University, where he co-directs the Institute for Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Physics and leads a research program applying unified theories to cosmology. Born in New York City, Dr. Greene was an undergraduate at Harvard University and earned his doctorate at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. His 1999 book, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory, is a popularization of superstring theory and M-theory. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction, has sold over a million copies, and won the Aventis Prizes for Adult Science Books in 2000. The Elegant Universe was later made into a PBS television special with Dr. Greene as host, winning both a Peabody Award and an Emmy. His second book, The Fabric of the Cosmos (2004), spent half a year on the New York Times bestseller list. The book, an examination of the very nature of matter and reality—covering such topics as origins of inertia, entanglement, inflationary cosmology, the arrow of time, and unification—is currently being adapted for a four-part PBS special. His latest book, Icarus at the Edge of Time (2008), is a futuristic re-imagining of the Icarus fable for children. Dr. Greene is co-founder of the World Science Festival, an annual event in New York City bringing vibrant science programming to a wide general audience, child to adult, novice to enthusiast. In its review of the inaugural festival in 2008, the New York Times hailed it "a new cultural institution." Dr. Greene also dabbles in acting, having cameo roles in the Hollywood films Frequency, Maze, and The Last Mimzy.