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The Experimental Cosmologist Hunting for the First Sunrise
To catch even a whiff of the universe’s earliest epochs — an age of darkness, and one of new light — Cynthia Chiang builds her own equipment. Then she deploys it at the ends of the Earth.
Why Mathematical Proof Is a Social Compact
Number theorist Andrew Granville on what mathematics really is — and why objectivity is never quite within reach.
The Cryptographer Who Ensures We Can Trust Our Computers
Yael Tauman Kalai’s breakthroughs secure our digital world, from cloud computing to our quantum future.
The Physicist Who’s Challenging the Quantum Orthodoxy
For decades, physicists have struggled to develop a quantum theory of gravity. But what if gravity — and space-time — are fundamentally classical?
An Explorer of Abyssal Depths Looks to Oceans on Other Worlds
The marine geochemist Chris German brings decades of experience studying seafloor hydrothermal vents to NASA’s preparations for visits to other ocean worlds in our solar system.
The Physicist Who Glues Together Universes
Renate Loll has helped pioneer a radically new approach to quantum gravity. She assumes that the fabric of space-time is a blend of all possible fabrics, and she has developed the computational tools needed to calculate the far-reaching implications of that assumption.
A Plan to Address the World’s Challenges With Math
Minhyong Kim is leading a new initiative called Mathematics for Humanity that encourages mathematicians to apply their skills to solving social problems.
The Computer Scientist Peering Inside AI’s Black Boxes
Cynthia Rudin wants machine learning models, responsible for increasingly important decisions, to show their work.
She Tracks the DNA of Elusive Species That Hide in Harsh Places
On Mount Everest and in the Peruvian Andes, Tracie Seimon uses DNA to study how species and ecosystems respond to climate change, pathogens and other influences.