Mark Van Raamsdonk is a professor of physics at the University of British Columbia, where he also received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics. He completed a Ph.D. in physics at Princeton University followed by postdoctoral research at Stanford University. Van Raamsdonk was a Canada Research Chair and Sloan Foundation Fellow and is currently a Simons Investigator. He was awarded the Canadian CAP/CRM Medal in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics in 2014.
Van Raamsdonk’s research focuses on understanding quantum gravity using the AdS/CFT correspondence in string theory. He is currently working to understand the implications for gravitational physics of fundamental results in quantum information theory, and also to understand better which properties of quantum states are required to describe gravitational space-times via the AdS/CFT correspondence.