Ana Achúcarro

Ana Achúcarro MAE
Born	Ana Achúcarro Jiménez 1962 (age 62–63)
Alma mater	University of the Basque Country (BA) University of Cambridge (PhD)
Known for	Astroparticle physics Supergravity
Scientific career
Institutions	Tufts University Imperial College London University of Leiden Isaac Newton Institute
Thesis	Classical properties of supersymmetric extended objects (1988)
Doctoral advisor	Paul Townsend[1]
Doctoral students	Jonathan Mboyo Esole
Website	wwwhome.lorentz.leidenuniv.nl/~achucar

Ana Achúcarro Jiménez MAE (born 1962) is a Spanish researcher, academic, and professor of particle astrophysics and quantum field theory at the University of Leiden in Leiden, Netherlands. Her research considers the early universe, supergravity, black holes and solitons.

Early life and education

Achúcarro graduated from the University of the Basque Country in Spain, graduating with a B.A. in physics in 1984.[2] She moved to the United Kingdom for her doctoral studies, completing the Part III of the Mathematical Tripos in 1985.[2] She was awarded the St Catharine's College, Cambridge graduate prize in mathematics. She remained in Cambridge, England for her PhD, working with Paul Townsend and Stephen Hawking.[1][3][4] She was awarded the J. T. Knight Prize and a British Council Fleming Scholarship. She completed her PhD in 1988, with a thesis titled Classical Properties of Supersymmetric Extended Objects.[3][1] Achúcarro remains a member of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Studies, based in Cambridge.[5]

Research and career

Achúcarro joined Imperial College London as a postdoctoral research associate in 1988.[2] A year later she was appointed assistant professor at Tufts University in the United States where she worked on cosmic strings.[6][7][8] Her research there showed that the presence of global symmetries in gauge theory can result in stringlike defects.[6] Achúcarro's research also concerns string theory and the early universe.[9] She moved to the Netherlands in 2002 to join Leiden University.[2] She was awarded a National Science Foundation ADVANCE lectureship at Case Western Reserve University in 2004.[10]

Achúcarro leads the theoretical cosmology group at the University of Leiden, working on astroparticle physics and quantum field theory.[11] She was a pioneer in the application of string theory to cosmology.[12][13] In 2011 she participated in Science of the Cosmos, an annual lecture series hosted by the BBVA Foundation.[14] The lectures considered the origins of the universe.[15] She was part of the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) public directive on the string theory universe.[16][17][18] She also serves on the European Science Foundation's steering committee for Cosmology in the Laboratory.[19]

In 2015 she was awarded a €2.3 million grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).[20][21] She was appointed to the Galileo Galilei Institute for Theoretical Physics in 2016.[22] Achúcarro leads the Leiden de Sitter cosmology programme, which trains young scientists in the interdisciplinary area of modern cosmology.[23] She serves on the advisory council of the Spanish National Research Council.^[citation needed]

Awards and honours

She was elected a Member of the Academia Europaea (MAE) in 2011.[24]

See also

• List of Spanish inventors and discoverers

References

1. Ana Achúcarro at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
2. "Lorentz, een briljante geest en een levend kunstwerk – de sprekers" (PDF). Akademia Van Kunsten. Retrieved 2019-04-27.
3. Achucarro, Ana (1988). Classical properties of supersymmetric extended objects. jisc.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. OCLC 53555199. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.292900.^[permanent dead link‍]
4. Redactie (2018-03-14). "Reacties op het overlijden van Stephen Hawking: 'Hij was een perfect voorbeeld van hoe je met moed een ziekte tegemoet treedt. Een strijder'". de Volkskrant (in Dutch). Retrieved 2019-04-26.
5. "Ana Achucarro | Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences". newton.cam.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 2019-04-27. Retrieved 2019-04-26.
6. S, Kalara; V, Nanopoulos Dimitri (1993-08-26). Blackholes, Membranes, Wormholes And Superstrings - Proceedings Of The International Symposium. World Scientific. ISBN 9789814554084.
7. Vachaspati, Tanmay; Achúcarro, Ana (1991). "Semilocal cosmic strings". Physical Review D. 44 (10): 3067–3071. Bibcode:1991PhRvD..44.3067V. doi:10.1103/physrevd.44.3067. ISSN 0556-2821. PMID 10013761.
8. Achúcarro, A (2000). "Semilocal and electroweak strings". Physics Reports. 327 (6): 347–426. arXiv:hep-ph/9904229. Bibcode:2000PhR...327..347A. doi:10.1016/S0370-1573(99)00103-9. ISSN 0370-1573. S2CID 9390853.
9. "Ana Achúcarro investigates the origins of the universe Deeply rooted curiosity" (PDF). nwo-i.nl. Retrieved 2019-04-26.
10. "Kavli-CERCA Conference « Events". phys.cwru.edu. Retrieved 2019-04-26.
11. "Ana Achúcarro's home page". wwwhome.lorentz.leidenuniv.nl. Retrieved 2019-04-26.
12. "Leiden Institute of Physics - item". physics.leidenuniv.nl. Retrieved 2019-04-27.
13. "Topological avatars of new physics". royalsociety.org. Royal Society. Retrieved 2019-04-27.
14. "Ana Achúcarro". elcultural.com. Retrieved 2019-04-26.
15. Achúcarro, Ana; Thorne, Kip; Cronin, James; Dishoeck, Ewine van; Asplund, Martin; Spergel, David; Hooft, Gerard't; Kuijken, Konrad; Fundación BBVA (2012), Ciclo de conferencias de Astrofísica y Cosmología. Series of lectures on Astrophysics and Cosmology., Fundación BBVA, OCLC 956276008
16. "Strings13". strings13.unibe.ch. Retrieved 2019-04-27.
17. "Action MP1210". COST. Retrieved 2019-04-27.
18. "Prof. ACHUCARRO Ana | The String Theory Universe". weizmann.ac.il. Retrieved 2019-04-27.
19. "Steering Commitee [sic] : European Science Foundation". archives.esf.org. Retrieved 2019-04-26.
20. Amsterdam, Universiteit van (2014-11-21). "Three new FOM 'Vrije Programma's' for theoretical physics - Delta Institute for Theoretical Physics". d-itp.nl. Retrieved 2019-04-26.
21. "Casimir - FOM awards Ana Achúcarro with a new programme: 'Observing the big bang: the quantum universe and its imprint on the sky'". casimir.researchschool.nl. Retrieved 2019-04-26.
22. "Event at Galileo Galilei Institute". ggi.infn.it. Retrieved 2019-04-27.
23. "Contact". leidendesitter.nl. Retrieved 2019-04-27.
24. "Academy of Europe: Achucarro Ana". ae-info.org. Retrieved 2019-04-26.

External links

• Homepage, Leiden University.