A list of female string & QG theorists.

[MathematicalPhysicist]

Is there such a list somewhere in the www?

My motives are pure... :!)

 

[marcus]

...

My motives are pure... :!)

Of course, everybody's motives are pure.

Some women researchers in background independent QG (nonstring) are

Renate Loll (Utrecht)
Fotini Markopoulou (Perimeter)
Bianca Dittrich (AEI Potsdam)
Sabine Hossenfelder (Stockholm)
Fay Dowker (London)
Francesca Vidotto (Marseille)
Ruth Williams (Cambridge)
Kristina Giesel (Munich)
Elena Magliaro (Marseille)
Catherine Meusburger (Hamburg)
Luisa Doplicher (Leiden)


I will try to think of some more. The names are listed in no particular order, more or less as they came to mind. I don't know of any list of specifically women QG researchers, but it would be easy to go down the list of participants at the Loops 2008 conference, or the recent QG Workshop at Zakopane, and find more names.

BTW when I take the time to make such a list, what it tells me is that there is something special about the German educational system. The French are doing an outstanding job at bringing up smart creative young QGs---I could give you a dozen names without trouble--on the whole they are the best of the new generation. But for some reason if you sort out the women you see that many of the top young people have passed through a suburb of Berlin called Potsdam, and then Utrecht. Something there has proven comparatively better at inspiring women to do hard innovative QG research. I have no idea what this could be. Some distinctive vitamin in the system. (Actually now I think of it, it might simply be the existence of Loll as a leader, mentor, and roll model---she was at Potsdam and is now at Utrecht. But it could also be something in the system of undergraduate education.)

 

[atyy]

Ingemar Bengtsson
Silke Weinfurtner
Henriette Elvang
Eva Silverstein
Lisa Randall
Natalia Saulina
Sakura Schafer-Nameki

 

[marcus]

Ingemar Bengtsson
Silke Weinfurtner
Henriette Elvang
Eva Silverstein
Lisa Randall
Natalia Saulina
Sakura Schafer-Nameki

Atyy, I had forgotten to list Ingemar Bengtsson until you reminded me. Wonderful, see Bengtsson's webpage:
http://www.physto.se/~ingemar/ [Broken]
"The research areas that I like the best usually have something to do with geometry. General relativity is a favourite. Most of my work there is on black holes. My strongest prejudice is that the world has four dimensions; this is the direction in which I look for clues about quantum gravity."

Bengtsson pioneered the approach to QG that Kirill Krasnov has been working on, and is on the board of the European QG funding agency that John Barrett chairs.

Actually Bengtsson is a man but I feel sure he would be gratified to be found in such company.

 

[atyy]

Atyy, I had forgotten to list Ingemar Bengtsson until you reminded me. Wonderful, see her webpage:
http://www.physto.se/~ingemar/ [Broken]
"The research areas that I like the best usually have something to do with geometry. General relativity is a favourite. Most of my work there is on black holes. My strongest prejudice is that the world has four dimensions; this is the direction in which I look for clues about quantum gravity."

She pioneered the approach to QG that Kirill Krasnov has been working on. She is on the board of the European QG funding agency that John Barrett chairs.

Gosh, I had always thought 4D was a bizarre fantasy of yours! Now that I know Bengtsson shares it, I shall have to give it some respect (As a musician, my instinct is that the number of dimensions is variable and fractional - like the voices in a monodic line of Bach )

 

[francesca]

Some women researchers in background independent QG (nonstring) are...

surely I'm forgetting someone...

Ruth Williams (Cambridge)
Renate Loll (Utrecht)
Mairi Sakellariadou (King's College London)
Fotini Markopoulou (Perimeter-AEI)
Bianca Dittrich (AEI)
Catherine Meusburger (Hamburg)
Annalisa Marzuoli (Pavia)
Sabine Hossenfelder (Stockholm)
Kristina Giesel (Munich)
Cecilia Flori (Perimeter)
Elena Magliaro (Marseille-PennState)
Maïte Dupuis (Lyon)
You Ding (Marseille)
Maryam Shaeri (Nottingham)
Mercedes Martin-Benito (Madrid-AEI)
Mercedes Velazquez (MexicoCity)
Diana Kaminski (Hamburg)
Lydia Philpott (Imperial College London)
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (Perimeter)
Emília Kubalová (Brno)
Antonia Zipfel (Erlangen)
Ewa Infeld (Warsaw)
Ileana Naish-Guzman (Nottingham)
Anna Gustavsson (Imperial College London)

 

[marcus]

Thanks francesca, I feel that my motives are especially pure towards you today.
The thread starter, MathematicalPhysicist, put it so nicely.
You did forget some names. But your list is more complete and fills in some that I forgot.

When I first read the essay by Ingemar Bengtsson, Why Space is Three Dimensional, I pictured him as an eccentric middleaged gentleman who enjoys gardening and has an original turn of mind.
I was surprised to find him included in Atyy's list, but doubt that gender makes much difference to the intellect, in this case. I remember the essay was amusing, so I will post the link to it.
Here is the essay:
http://www.physto.se/~ingemar/fyra.pdf [Broken]

 

[atyy]

Hmmm, perhaps I did get Ingemar Bengtsson's gender wrong. Bengtsson is referred to as a lady here http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Geometry-of-Quantum-States/Ingemar-Bengtsson/e/9780521891400, but Ingemar seems to be a man's name. Not that this matters of course, I still very much like Bengtsson's suggestion that Krasnov independently proposed quite a bit later. But curiously, I do find the 4D thing less appealing when proposed by a man (yes, that's irrational)!

 

[MathematicalPhysicist]

Thank you all.

There are some nice LQG female researchers.
(-:

 

[waht]

Just curious, anybody know their dating preferences?

 

[Redsummers]

I think no one mentioned her, but Chiara Nappi, is also a string theorist while also being Witten's wife. She is now holding two positions in both Princeton and the Institute for Advanced Studies.