Jim Hartle made major contributions to our understanding of relativistic stars, black holes, and cosmology. Most of his career, however, was devoted to studying the universe as a quantum system. As a result, he was known as the father of quantum cosmology. His contributions include the “Hartle-Hawking vacuum” for matter fields outside a black hole, and the “Hartle-Hawking no-boundary wave function” for cosmology. This conference will pay tribute to Jim’s scientific career and honor his legacy.

The confirmed speakers include:

• Todd Brun (USC)
• Sean Carroll (Johns Hopkins)
• Fay Dowker (Imperial College)
• Netta Engelhardt (MIT)
• Steve Giddings (UCSB)
• Thomas Hertog (KU Leuven)
• Veronika Hubeny (UC Davis)
• Ted Jacobson (U of Maryland)
• Juan Maldacena (IAS, Princeton)
• Rob Myers (Perimeter Institute)
• Andy Strominger (Harvard)
• Kip Thorne (Caltech)
• Bob Wald (U of Chicago)
• John Whelan (Rochester Institute of Technology)