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Jacob Bourjaily

Associate Professor of Physics
Jacob Bourjaily

Biography:

I began my career in science as an undergraduate studying physics and mathematics at the University of Michigan. Upon graduation, I took up a Marshall Scholarship to pursue a degree in Mathematics at Cambridge University before starting doctoral work at Princeton University, where I earned my PhD in 2011 under the supervision of Nima Arkani-Hamed at the Institute for Advanced Study, writing a thesis on Quantum Field Theory and the Analytic S-Matrix.

After Princeton, I was elected to the Harvard Society of Fellows, where I spent several years working on what would become the book, Grassmannian Geometry of Scattering Amplitudes, published by Cambridge University Press.

I moved to Copenhagen in 2014 to join the faculty at the Niels Bohr International Academy of the University of Copenhagen, where I still maintain an affiliation. While in Copenhagen, my work earned support from the Villum Foundation and the European Research Council, allowing me to recruit and collaborate with a number of outstanding researchers (see below).

I took up my current position at Penn State in 2020, and am looking forward to many exciting years here.

Useful links:

Education:

Princeton University (PhD, Physics), 2011
Cambridge University (MaSt, Maths), 2006
University of Michigan (BS, Physics & Mathematics), 2005

Research Funding and Grants:

  • Starting Grant, the European Research Council (2018): €1,499,695 (~$1,759,000)
  • Young Investigator Grant, the Villum Foundation (2017): 7,390,515 DKK (~$1,035,000)
  • Mobilex Grant, the Danish Council for Independent Research (2014): 2,000,187 DKK (~$335,000)
  • Milton Grant, Harvard University (2012): $40,000

Honors and Awards:

  • Villum Young Investigator Award, 2017
  • Marshall Scholarship, 2005
  • Graduate Research Fellowship, National Science Foundation, 2005
  • Goldwater Scholarship, 2004
  • Roger B. Chaffee Astronaut Memorial Scholarship, 2002

Research Group and Affiliates:

Assistant Professors:

Postdoctoral Research Scholars:

Graduate and Undergraduate Students: