Titles

Evan Pugh Professor
Holder, Eberly Chair
Director, Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos

Education

Ph. D. (Physics) University of Chicago, 1974
Doctor Rerum Naturalium Honoris Causa
- Friedrich-Schiller Universitaet, Jena, Germany, 2005
- Universite de la Mediterranee, Aix-Marseille, France, 2010

Honors and Awards

• First Gravity prize in the annual international competition, awarded by the Gravity Research Foundation, Massachusetts, 1977.
• Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, 1981-1985.
• Chancellor's Citation for Academic Excellence, Syracuse University 1987.
• Elected to the Governing Council of the International Society for General Relativity and Gravitation, 1989-1998.
• Rufus Putnam Distinguished Visiting Professor, Ohio University, October 1989.
• Senior Visiting Fellow. British Science and Engineering Research Council, Spring 1991.
• Distinguished Lectures, Institute for Fundamental Theory, University of Florida, Spring 1992.
• Wasserstrom Award for Graduate Teaching and Advising, 1992.
• Distinguished Lectures, Center for Theoretical Physics, University of Maryland, February 1994.
• 1995 Andrejewski Lectures on Mathematical Physics, Federal Republic of Germany.
• Elected Honorary Fellow, Indian Academy of Sciences, 1996.
• Golden Jubilee Visiting Professor, Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, India, August 1997.
• Distinguished Lecture Series; Mexican Academy of Science, Mexico-US Foundation for Science and UAM, Mexico City, September 1997.
• Elected Fellow, American Physical Society, 1997.
• Elected Foreign Fellow, The National Academy of Sciences, India 1997.
• Chair, Topical Group in Gravitation, of the American Physical Society, 1998.
• Elected President, American Chapter of the Indian Physics Association (2000-2002).
• Profile featured in The New York Times Scientists at Work, edited by L. Chang, Foreword by Stephen Jay Gould (McGraw Hill, New York, 2000).
• Invited Lecture in the symposium "Les Quanta": un Siecle apres Planck" celebrating 100th anniversary of the publication of Planck's paper on black body radiation, at the French Academie des Sciences, Paris 2000.
• The Centennial Saha Memorial Lecture, Kolkotta, India 2000.
• Wiegand Lectures, St. Johns College, Santa Fe 2001.
• Academy Public Lecture, Indian Academy of Science, 2002, 2004.
• Awarded the senior Forschungspreis by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation 2004.
• Sir C.V. Raman Chair of the Indian Academy of Sciences (2004-2005).
• The S. N. Bose Memorial Lecture, Kolkatta, India 2005.
• The Krammers Chair of Theoretical Physics, University of Utrecht, Spring 2006.
• Awarded Distinguished Scholar Prize by the American Chapter of Indian Association of Physics, 2007.
• Elected President, International Society for General Relativity and Gravitation, 2007-2010.
• Elected Fellow, American Association for Advancement of Science, 2008.
• Lewiner Distinguished Lecture Series, Technion, Israel 2009.
• Doctor Rerum Naturalium Honoris Causa, Universite de la Mediterranee, Aix-Marseille, France 2010
• Ireland Distinguished Lectures, University of New Brunswick, Canada 2010
• National Academic of Sciences, 2016

Research Interests

Quantum Gravity:

• Quantum geometry and its ramifications
• Black hole entropy
• Quantum field theory on quantum space-times
• Quantum cosmology and the very early universe
• Background independent approach and its relation to low energy physics
• Potential experimental tests

General Relativity:

• Mathematical theory of Black holes
• Isolated horizons and their applications
• Interface of analytical and numerical relativity
• Asymptotics
• Gravitational radiation theory

Other areas:

• Mathematical aspects of quantum field theory
• Gauge theories
• Generalizations of quantum mechanics
• Geometry and physics  

Selected Publications

1. I. Agullo, A. Ashtekar and W. Nelson, An extension of the quantum theory of cosmological perturbations to the Planck era, Physical Review D (at press); arXiv:1211:1354
2. A. Ashtekar, Introduction to loop quantum gravity, Pos/QGQG2011-001, edited by F. Hellmann et al; arXiv 1201.4598. 
3. A. Ashtekar and M. Campiglia, On the Uniqueness of Kinematics of Loop Quantum Cosmology, Class. Quantum Grav. 29, 242001 (2012); arXiv: 1209.4373 
4. I. Agullo, A. Ashtekar and W. Nelson, A Quantum Gravity Extension of the Inflationary Scenario, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 251301 (2012) ; arXiv: 1209.1609 
5. A. Ashtekar, Some recent advances in loop quantum cosmology, J. Phys: Conf. Ser. 360, 012001, 1-9 (2012) 
6. A. Ashtekar, Introduction to loop quantum gravity and cosmology, In; The Proceedings of the Sixth Aegean Summer School, Held at Naxos, Greece, (Ed L. Papantonopoulos, Springer, 2012). 
7. A Ashtekar, The big bang and the quantum, AIP Conf. Proceedings 1241, 109-121 (2010); arXiv: 1005.5491.
8. A. Ashtekar, M. Campiglia and A. Henderson, Casting loop quantum cosmology in the spin foam paradigm, Classical and quantum gravity, 27, 135020 (2010); arXiv: 1001.5147.
9. A. Ashtekar, M. Campiglia and A. Henderson, Path integrals and the WKB approximation in loop quantum cosmology, Physical Review D 82, 124043 1-12 (2010); arXiv:1011.1024.
10. A. Ashtekar, F. Pretorius and F. Ramazanoglu, Surprises in the evaporation of two dimensional black holes, Physical Review Letters 106, 161303 1-4 (2011); arXiv:1011.6442.

Assistant:

Randi Neshteruk