This Millen­nial Might Be the New Einstein

OK, it’s 2016, and gifted females are not exactly rare at MIT; nearly half the under­grads are women. But some­thing about Pasterski led Udden not just to help get her plane appro­ved, but to get the atten­tion of the univer­si­ty’s top profes­sors. Now, eight years later, the lanky, 22-year-old Pasterski is already an MIT graduate and Harvard Ph.D. candi­date who has the world of physics abuzz. She’s explo­ring some of the most chal­len­ging and complex issues in physics, much as Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein (whose theory of rela­ti­vity just turned 100 years old) did early in their careers. Her research delves into black holes, the nature of gravity and space­time. A parti­cu­lar focus is trying to better unders­tand “quan­tum gravity,” which seeks to explain the pheno­me­non of gravity within the context of quan­tum mecha­nics. Disco­ve­ries in that area could drama­ti­cally change our unders­tan­ding of the workings of the universe.

— Ozy

Joli portrait, à lire.