Wednesday September 18, 2019 vol. cxliii no. 70
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BEYOND THE BUBBLE
Acclaimed physicist and U. professor Steven Gubser ’94 dies at 47 By Allan Shen staff writer
Prominent theoretical physicist and professor of physics Steven Scott Gubser ’94 died in Chamonix, France, on Saturday, Aug. 3. Gubser died from a rockclimbing accident while scaling the Comb Needle near Mont Blanc, Europe’s highest peak, when he was on vacation with his family. He was 47 years old. Gubser was born in Tulsa, Okla., on May 4, 1972, as the second son of Nicholas James Gubser II and Margo Gubser Gardner. Soon after his birth, Gubser’s family relocated to Aspen, Colo. He attended secondary schools in Aspen and Denver, eventually graduating from Cherry Creek High School in Greenwood Village, Colo. As a high school student, Gubser had already demonstrated his intellectual prowess, having been the first American to ever become the absolute winner of the International Physics Olympiad in 1989 at the age of 17, as well as a silver medalist at the 1990 International Chemistry Olympiad. Gubser enrolled at the University as an undergraduate student, concentrated in physics and graduated in 1994 as class valedictorian. For his senior thesis, Gubser was awarded the LeRoy Apker Award by the American Physical Society, its most distinguished accolade for undergraduate research. After completing Part III of the Mathematics Tripos at Cambridge University as a Fulbright Scholar in 1995, Gubser returned to the University for graduate
DENISE APPLEWHITE / OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS
Gubser ’94 enjoyed unicycing, playing the piano, and spending time with his family while not in the classroom.
studies and completed his Ph.D. in only three years, under the supervision of Igor Klebanov GS ’86, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics and the director of the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science, as well as adviser to Gubser’s senior thesis. “He was very casual, very informal in a way, but very focused about theoretical physics,” Klebanov said. “Once he started working on a problem,
U . A F FA I R S
he would dive in and work super hard. Both as an undergraduate student and as a graduate student he displayed maturity well beyond his age.” After completing his doctorate, Gubser spent two years as a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows from 1998 to 1999, and then returned to the University as a faculty member in 2000. Gubser served as a professor
of physics at the California Institute of Technology in 2001 while on leave from the University, after which he became an associate professor of physics at the University and was eventually promoted to full professor in 2005, a title he kept for the remainder of his life. Gubser’s specialty in theoretical physics was string theory and its applications. When he was a graduate student, Gubser’s
ON CAMPUS
collaborations with Klebanov and the Joseph Henry Professor of Physics Alexander Polyakov resulted in foundational contributions in anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence. A 1998 paper co-authored by the three physicists, titled “Gauge theory correlators from noncritical string theory,” is now one of the mostcited papers in theoretical high energy physics. Later in his career, Gubser continued to study various aspects of AdS/CFT correspondence, such as its applications in quantum chromodynamics as well as condensed matter physics. Gubser’s many awards include the inaugural Gribov Medal of the European Physical Society, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists, a Simons Investigator Award, among others. Christian Jepsen, one of the physics graduate students under Gubser’s supervision, lauded Gubser’s qualities as a mentor. “His very easygoing and approachable style made it that you weren’t afraid to ask the dumb questions,” Jepsen remarked. “He had a wonderful skill of concisely presenting the core idea of a step so that suddenly, an idea that was intimidating had suddenly become familiar.” As associate chair for undergraduate affairs at the Department of Physics, Gubser was actively involved with undergraduate teaching at the University. As a member and then Chair of the Princeton Faculty See OBITUARY page 4
U . A F FA I R S
Free menstrual prod- Yield rate for Class ucts provided to campus bathrooms of 2023 staff writer
LIANA MIUCCIO / LEWIS CENTER OF THE ARTS
The Lewis Center for the Arts recently named Professor Jhumpa Lahiri Director of the University’s Program in Creative Writing.
Author Jhumpa Lahiri named Director of Program in Creative Writing By Paige Allen staff writer
The Lewis Center for the Arts recently named Professor Jhumpa Lahiri Director of the University’s Program in Creative Writing. Lahiri was named to the position after former director and 2017 U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy
In Opinion
K. Smith was named Chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts on July 1, after having served as the creative writing director for four years. A faculty member in the Program in Creative Writing since 2015, Lahiri also serves as associate faculty with the departments of Comparative Literature and French and See DIRECTOR page 3
Guest contributors from the Woodrow Wilson School advocate joining a public strike protesting global leaders’ equivocations on climate change.
PAGE 4
Free menstrual products are now supplied in campus bathrooms, marking the implementation of the Menstrual Products Task Force’s initiative, which was approved by University administrators last semester. A total of 56 bathrooms in seven buildings on campus, including Frick Chemistry Lab and the Friend Center, have been stocked with free menstrual products. The menstrual products can be found in men’s, women’s, and genderneutral bathrooms. The Menstrual Products Task Force, a group of students associated with the University Student Government, hopes that this initiative will help students maintain healthier lifestyles without the cost of menstrual products becoming a burden. The bathrooms in question now feature products from Aunt Flow, an environmentally friendly menstrual products start-up. Each bathroom is equipped with an Aunt Flow dispenser attached to the wall that is stocked with biodegradable pads and tampons.
Some students have expressed appreciation for the selection of Aunt Flow products. “When I walked to the bathroom last week and I saw them, I was really excited … to see that they are organic and biodegradable,” Naomi CohenShields ’20 said. Cohen-Shields also expressed support of the genderinclusive reach of the implementation. “I think the University should strive to be as inclusive as possible and understanding of different people’s genders and understandings of themselves, so why not make them available to anyone who might need them?” she asked. Preeti Iyer ’20, leader of the Menstrual Products Task Force, has already received positive feedback and is hoping to hear more from students about what they like and dislike about the products. “It’s been really cool just to see on social media people posting about it, the reactions, the usage of it,” Iyer said. “It’s definitely been pretty inspiring to see how the campus has reacted.” According to Iyer, the iniSee PRODUCTS page 2
Today on Campus 4:00 p.m.: Workshop - Resources for Operations Research & Financial Engineering (ORFE) majors Engineering Library Room 105
increases By Rebecca Han staff writer
The University’s yield — the percentage of students who accepted their offer of admission to join the University’s firstyear class — rose to 73.2 percent this year, from 69 percent last year. In March, the University announced that it had offered admission to 1,896 students from a combined regular decision and early action applicant pool of 32,804 applications. Currently, there are 1,343 first-year students enrolled, about 50 students more than the target class size. Last year, the incoming class exceeded the target size by about 43 students. In summer 2018, the University converted Lauritzen Hall in Whitman College, which formerly housed part of the Princeton Writing Center, into a dormitory in order to accommodate the overflow. Of the incoming class, 51 percent identify as women and about half identify as minority students. Pell Grant recipients comprise 24.8 percent See YIELD page 3
WEATHER
By Yael Marans
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70˚
LOW
48˚
Partly Cloudy chance of rain:
0 percent