Prof. Hirosi Ooguri
On May 14, 2014, California Institute of Technology announced the establishment of the Walter Burke Institute of Theoretical Physics (Burke Institute) with Hirosi Ooguri as its Founding Director. Ooguri has been a Principal Investigator at the Kavli IPMU since October, 2007.
The Burke Institute is a permanent research center with $75 million endowment. It aims to promote research in theoretical physics by providing outstanding educational and research opportunities for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, by bringing distinguished visiting scholars to Caltech, by hosting workshops to accelerate the exchange of ideas, and by encouraging cross-disciplinary collaborations.
Ooguri is well-known for his achievements in theoretical physics, in particular in superstring theory and quantum field theory. Under his leadership, the Burke Institute will lead humanity’s quest to discover fundamental laws of nature and to explain natural phenomena at all scales—from subatomic, atomic, and molecular scales to the scales of celestial objects and the universe itself.