Lisa Randall studies particle physics and cosmology at Harvard University where she is professor of theoretical physics. Her research concerns the fundamental nature of particles and forces and how matter’s basic elements relate to the physical properties of the world that we see. Her research has focused on a wide variety of ideas for what might lie beyond established particle physics and cosmological theories. She has worked on grand unified theories, Technicolor, supersymmetry, cosmological inflation, baryogenesis, and, most recently, theories of extra dimensions of space. She has made seminal contributions in all these areas and, as of last autumn, was the most cited theoretical physicist of the past five years.

Professor Randall earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University and held professorships at MIT and Princeton University before returning to Harvard in 2001. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the American Physical Society, and is a past winner of an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation research fellowship, a National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award, a DOE Outstanding Junior Investigator Award, and the Westinghouse (now Intel) Science Talent Search. She is the author of Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions (Ecco, 2005).