Vijay Balasubramanian

Vijay Balasubramanian’s research focuses on basic questions concerning the nature of space and time. His other interests include string theory, particle physics, high energy physics, and neuroscience. He teaches the capstone course for the computational neuroscience minor in the Biological Basis of Behavior program and, in addition to his appointment in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, is an associate professor of neuroscience in the Perelman School of Medicine. He was a 2006 recipient of the Ira H. Abrams Award for Distinguished Teaching, the highest teaching honor in Penn Arts & Sciences.

From 1997 to 2000, Balasubramanian was a junior fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows and was also a fellow at-large at the Santa Fe Institute. In 2006, he received the first prize in the Gravity Research Foundation essay competition. He earned his Ph.D. in theoretical physics and computer science from Princeton University.