Cumrun Vafa (Persian: کامران وفا‎, pronounced [kɔːmˈrɔːn væˈfɔː]; born 1960 in Tehran, Iran) is an Iranian-American leading string theorist from Harvard University where he started as a Harvard Junior Fellow. He is a recipient of the 2008 Dirac Medal.

Cumrun Vafa was born in Tehran, Iran in 1960. He graduated from Alborz High School and went to the US in 1977. He got his undergraduate degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a double major in physics and mathematics. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1985 under the supervision of Edward Witten. He then became a junior fellow at Harvard, where he later got a junior faculty position. In 1989 he was offered a senior faculty position, and he has been there ever since. Currently, he is the Donner Professor of Science at Harvard University.

Cumrun Vafa is a string theorist. His research is focused on the nature of quantum gravity and the relation between geometry and quantum field theories. He is known in the string theory community for his co-discovery, with Strominger, that the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of a black hole can be accounted for by solitonic states of superstring theory, and for expounding the relation between geometry and field theories that arise through string dualities (culminating in the Gopakumar-Vafa conjecture). This topic has been known as "geometric engineering of quantum field theories". In 1997, he developed F-theory.

Shiraz Minwalla (Marathi: शिराझ मिन्वाल्ला) is an Indian theoretical physicist and string theorist. He is currently a faculty member in the Department of Theoretical Physics at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. Prior to his present position, he was a Harvard Junior Fellow and subsequently an Assistant Professor at Harvard University.

Minwalla graduated from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1996, and was awarded the President's Gold Medal for topping the entire group; he later moved to Princeton University to earn his Ph.D. He was awarded the Swarnajayanti Fellowship 2005-06 by the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India.

He was awarded in 2011 the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, the highest science award in India, in the physical sciences category.

Eva Silverstein (born 1970) is a string theorist. She is married to fellow string theorist Shamit Kachru. She and Kachru were both proteges of Edward Witten.

She is best known for her work on tachyon condensation in string theory and resulting resolution of some spacetime singularities (with Adams, Polchinski, and others). Her other significant research contributions include the construction of the first models of dark energy in string theory, some basic extensions of the AdS/CFT correspondence to more realistic field theories (with Kachru), and the discovery of a predictive new mechanism for cosmic inflation involving D-brane dynamics (with Tong and Alishahiha).

I first became interested when I learned what physics was some time in high school. I had a very interesting high school physics teacher. I had always enjoyed math and physical science and when I saw the power of physics to explain and predict physical phenomena through simple principles and calculations, I became hooked. I was especially fascinated by special relativity, which starts from a simple physical principle that the speed of light, and in general all laws of nature, are the same in all reference frames, and derives through simple high school algebra amazing consequences such as the fact that time slows down in moving frames. When I realized that one could produce such things full time and actually make a living at it, I never really looked back.

Andrew Eben Strominger (born 1955) is an American theoretical physicist who works on string theory and son of Jack L. Strominger. He is currently a professor at Harvard University and a senior fellow at the Society of Fellows. He attended the Cambridge School of Weston for high school, and received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University in 1977, and his Ph.D from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982 under the supervision of Roman Jackiw. His contributions to physics include: