Thomas Banks
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick
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Primary Section: 13, Physics Secondary Section: 12, Astronomy Membership Type:
Member
(elected 2023)
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Biosketch
Thomas Banks PhD, is a Distinguished Professor of Physics at the New High Energy Theory Center of the Dept. of Physics at Rutgers University. He received a BA in Math/Physics from Reed College in 1969 and the PhD in Physics from MIT in 1974. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Tel Aviv University and stayed there until 1985, achieving the rank of full professor. He was then a professor at UC Santa Cruz 1986-89, Rutgers 1989 to the present (half time at Santa Cruz 2000-2015). Dr. Banks was a Guggenheim fellow. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the US National Academy of Science. Dr. Banks has been on the board of the Kavli Institute at UC Santa Barbara and has been a named visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the Weizmann Institute of Science.
Research Interests
Dr. Banks has made contributions to theoretical particle physics in lattice gauge theory, composite models of quarks and leptons, supersymmetry and the dynamics of symmetry breaking. He has been active in string theory, where he proved important results about symmetries and found the first non-perturbative formulation of a string model. More recently he has been involved in constructing models of quantum gravity that are closer to the physics of the real world than traditional string theory. In particular, he has constructed a finite and economical model of inflationary cosmology, with many implications for future observations. Another branch of his research has been devoted to condensed matter physics where he has explored the existence of colloidal phases of the homogeneous electron fluid model, which is the starting point for all of condensed matter models.
