KITP News Archive

The university held a ceremony in June, 2002 to formally name the institute the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics. The event honored Fred Kavli who made two gifts totaling $7.5 million through the Kavli Foundation and the Kavli Operating Institute for building endowment, supporting the construction of a new wing and programmatic initiatives at the institute. View photographs of the ceremony and read remarks of keynote speaker Kip Thorne of the California Institute of Technology.

UCSB has been named one of the 12 "hottest" colleges in the nation, according to the Kaplan College Guide.

David Gross Assumes the Frederick W. Gluck Professorship Santa Barbara, Calif.--Fred Gluck, best known for his legendary performance at the helm of the leading international management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, has given $1 million to endow the chair of the director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB).

Fred Gluck, best known for his legendary performance at the helm of the leading international management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, has given $1 million to endow the chair of the director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). David Gross, who came from Princeton University in 1997 to serve as director of the Institute, is the first Frederick W. Gluck Professor of Theoretical Physics.

We are expanding our space to have an even bigger and better KITP. Because of this construction we will not be having a Teachers' Conference in 2003.

Take a look at the invitation to KITP's groundbreak ceremony

Matthew Fisher has been elected to the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS).

Lars Bildsten, a permanent member of the KITP and professor in the UCSB physics department, has had his theory of neutron stars supported by the results of a NASA study.

[Read the UCSB Press Release]

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) -- The prestigious High Energy and Particle Physics Prize of the European Physical Society for 2003 has been awarded to David Gross, a professor of physics and director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

[Read UCSB Press Release]

Professor Lars Bildsten, Permanent Member at the KITP, has been awarded the Biermann Lectureship at the Max-Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA) in Munich for Summer 2004. Established in 1997, the Biermann Lectureship brings a world-ranked astrophysicist to Garching for a month with the task of giving a series of prize lectures and interacting broadly within the various local institutes. The aim is to stimulate scientific activity across the Munich astronomical community. Previous Biermann Lecturers were Joseph Silk (1997), Roger Blandford (1998), Bob Williams (1999), Bohdan Paczynski (2000), James Truran (2001), and Ramesh Narayan (2002).

Santa Barbara, Calif.--According to string theory, all the different particles that constitute physical reality are made of the same thing-tiny looped strings whose different vibrations give rise to the different fundamental particles that make up everything we know. Whether this theory correctly portrays fundamental reality is one of the biggest questions facing physicists.

Santa Barbara, Calif.—David J. Gross, director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) at the University of California at Santa Barbara, has been selected the 2004 recipient of France's highest scientific honor—the Grande Médaille D'Or (the Grand Gold Medal)—for his contributions to the understanding of fundamental physical reality. Gross, who holds the Frederick W. Gluck Chair in Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara, will receive the award, conferred by the French Academy of Sciences, at ceremonies in Paris on November 23.

The institute celebrated 25 years of international leadership at a ceremony dedicating the new wing, designed by Michael Graves, award-winning architect of Kohn Hall, distinguished by its unique interplay of form and function.

Santa Barbara, Calif. - David J. Gross, director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) and the first incumbent of the Frederick W. Gluck Chair in Theoretical Physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara, has been awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for solving in 1973 the last great remaining problem of what has since come to be called "the Standard Model" of the quantum mechanical picture of reality. He and his co-recipients discovered how the nucleus of atoms works.

Santa Barbara, Calif.--For 10 years the key landmark for arrivals at the principal entrance to the ocean-side campus of the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) has been the flat-topped, orange tower of Kohn Hall, home of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP), celebrating its 25-year existence under the aegis of the National Science Foundation (NSF) with an international conference on "The Future of Physics," from Oct. 7 to 9.