Rate My Professor Lee Smolin

Lee Smolin is an adjunct professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Waterloo, with his primary affiliation as senior faculty at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Educated at Hampshire College and Harvard University, he previously held positions as professor at Pennsylvania State University, Syracuse University, and Yale University, along with postdoctoral appointments at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Santa Barbara, and the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago. He has also served as visiting professor at institutions including Imperial College London, Oxford, Cambridge, and universities in Italy.

Smolin's research focuses on quantum gravity, cosmology, the foundations of quantum mechanics, astrophysics, theoretical biology, philosophy of science, and economics. He co-initiated the research programs of loop quantum gravity and deformed special relativity and has developed approaches such as the causal theory of views. His appointments at the University of Waterloo date to 2001. Among his honors are election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the American Physical Society, the Klopsteg Memorial Award from the American Association of Physics Teachers, the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, the inaugural Buchalter Prize in Cosmology, and multiple NSERC grants. He has authored numerous publications, including recent works on temporal naturalism, biocosmology, and combinatorial innovation.