Quantum Physics, Mini Black Holes, and the Multiverse

Professor John Terning is a Professor of Physics at University of California, Davis. He received his Ph.D. from University of Toronto and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University. He was also a researcher at Boston University, University of California, Berkeley and Harvard University. Professor Terning was a staff member at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. John Terning's research Interests include theoretical particle physics, electroweak symmetry breaking, supersymmetry, cosmology, extra dimensions, and AdS/CFT correspondence. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and his research papers have over eight thousand citations.

Professor L. William Poirier is Chancellor's Council Distinguished Research Professor and also Barnie E. Rushing Jr. Distinguished Faculty Member at Texas Tech University, in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and also the Department of Physics. He received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of California, Berkeley, followed by a chemistry research associateship at the University of Chicago. He is also the recipient of a DoE Early Career Award, and the TTU Tribute to Teachers Award. His research interest lies in understanding and solving the Schroedinger equation of quantum mechanics, from both foundational and practical perspectives. In 2009, he developed a new theory of quantum mechanics without wavefunctions, together with an interpretation that has now come to be known as "many interacting worlds." He is also the recent author of A Conceptual Guide to Thermodynamics (Wiley, 2014).

Professor Yasunori Nomura is director of the Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics. He received his Ph.D from University of Tokyo in 2000. After serving as a Miller research fellow at University of California, Berkeley and as an Associate Scientist at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, he was appointed to the faculty of Universityof California, Berkeley in 2003. Professor Nomura is a leading theoretical physicist working on particle physics, quantum gravity, and cosmology. He developed theories of grand unification in higher dimensional spacetime and constructed the first realistic composite Higgs model in which the Higgs boson arises from a symmetry breaking. He also proposed that the eternally inflating multiverse is the same thing as quantum many worlds. Professor Nomura is a recipient of the DOE Outstanding Junior Investigator Award, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, Hellman Family Faculty Fund Award, and Simons Fellowship in Theoretical Physics.