Bio
Prof. Gary Shiu received his PhD degree in Physics from Cornell University in 1998. He has held postdoctoral appointments at the C.N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook, and the University of Pennsylvania before joining the faculty of the University of Wisconsin, Madison where he is currently Professor of Physics. Prof. Shiu’s research program spans a wide range of areas in string theory, particle physics, and cosmology, with an emphasis on connecting fundamental theory to experiments. His quest to understand our universe at the most fundamental level has also drawn him to research in mathematics and artificial intelligence.
As the first member of the mathematical physics cluster, Prof. Shiu’s research program brought string theory to the University of Wisconsin. Since then, this research effort has grown resulting in the formation of the Theoretical and Computational Cosmology Group and the AI ∩ Universe Initiative. which interact synergistically with the String Theory and Particle Phenomenology programs.
Among the honors Prof. Shiu received are the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Johannes Diderik van der Waals Chair in the Netherlands. He was a recipient of the Cottrell Scholar Award, the NSF Career Award, and the Research Innovation Award. From the University of Wisconsin, he has received the Kellett Award, the Vilas Associate Award, and the Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award (highest teaching honor bestowed upon University of Wisconsin faculty). He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and a Kavli Frontiers Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences.
To disseminate his research findings, he has given numerous lectures at both a technical and a general level.
Short CV below and in pdf format. Full CV available upon request. See what others say about me in Wikipedia.
Education
| 1998 | Cornell University | Ph.D. in Physics |
| 1993 | Chinese University of Hong Kong | B.Sc. in Physics (1st Class Honors) |
Academic Appointments
| 2010-present | University of Wisconsin-Madison | Professor of Physics |
| 2012-2014 (on leave in 2014-2017) | Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) | Chair Professor of Physics |
| 2012-2014 (on leave in 2014-2017) | Hong Kong Institute for Advanced Study | Senior Fellow |
| 2013-2017 | Center for Fundamental Physics, HKUST | Founding Director |
| 2006-2010 | University of Wisconsin-Madison | Associate Professor of Physics |
| 2002-2006 | University of Wisconsin-Madison | Assistant Professor of Physics |
| 2000-2002 | University of Pennsylvania | Senior Research Associate |
| 1998-2000 | C.N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics | Postdoctoral Member |
Selected Awards and Honors
| 2016 | Kellett Mid-Career Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| 2015 | Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science |
| 2012 | Johannes Diderik van der Waals Chair, University of Amsterdam |
| 2012 | Fellow, Institute of Physics, UK |
| 2012 | University of Wisconsin Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award |
| 2011 | Fellow, American Physical Society |
| 2008 | John Simon Guggenheim Fellow |
| 2008 | Vilas Associate Award, University of Wisconsin |
| 2006 | Kavli Frontiers Fellow, National Academy of Sciences |
| 2005 | Cottrell Scholar Award |
| 2004 | NSF Career Award |
| 2003 | Research Innovation Award from Research Corporation |
Selected Visiting Appointments
| 2020-present | Visiting Senior Scientist, Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe |
| 2012-2013 | Johannes Diderik van der Waals Chair, University of Amsterdam |
| 2009 | Member, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton |
| 2008 | Visiting Professor, Stanford University |
| 2008 | Scientific Associate, CERN |
| 2005 | Visiting Professor, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics |
Research Publications
- Google Scholar Profile and Citation Analysis
- INSPIRE HEP Profile and Citation Analysis
- ORCID Identifier
Other Recent Professional Activities (Selected)
| 2021 – present | Member of the organizing committee, Seminar Series on String Phenomenology |
| 2020 – present | Co-initiator and co-organizer of Physics ∩ ML, an online seminar series at the interface of theoretical physics and machine learning |
| 2020 – 2023 | Program Committee of Division of Particles and Fields, American Physical Society |
| 2020-2022 | Selection Committee, J. J. and Noriko Sakurai Dissertation Award in Theoretical Particle Physics, 2021 (Vice Chair), 2022 (Chair) |
| 2018 – present | Editorial Board, Science China |
| 2018 – present | Editorial Board, Chinese Physics C |
| 2015 | Inaugural Chair, Gordon Research Conference on String Theory and Cosmology, 2015 |
Conference Organization (2015-)
| 2026 | Organizing Committee, International Congress of Basic Science 2026 Special Session “AI for String Maths”, Beijing Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Applications (BIMSA), Beijing, China. |
| 2026 | Thematic Program on “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Toric Geometry: Bridging Mathematics, Computation, and String Theory”, Erwin Schrodinger Institute, Vienna, Austria |
| 2026 | Organizer, Aspen Workshop on “AI Reasoning in Theoretical Physics”, Aspen Center for Physics, Aspen, CO |
| 2026 | Organizer, Data Analysis and Machine Learning for Physics Workshop, National Taiwan University, Taipei |
| 2025 | Organizer, Strings & Cosmology Meeting, Laboratoire d’Annecy-le-Vieux de Physique Théorique, Annecy, France |
| 2025 | Local Organizing Committee, Lepton Photon 2025 Conference, Madison, WI |
| 2024 | Thematic Program on “The Landscape vs. the Swampland”, Erwin Schrodinger Institute, Vienna, Austria |
| 2022 | Scientific Organizing Committee, “Hammers & Nails, Machine Learning Meets Astro & Particle Physics”, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. |
| 2022 | Organizer, “Interpretable and higher-order statistics for late-time cosmology”, Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe, Trieste, Italy. |
| 2021 | Program Committee, SUSY 2021, Beijing |
| 2021 | Thematic Program on “The Landscape vs. the Swampland”, Erwin Schrodinger Institute, Vienna, Austria (canceled due to COVID) |
| 2020 | KITP Program “The String Swampland and Quantum Gravity Constraints on Effective Theories”, Santa Barbara |
| 2019 | Microsoft Workshop on “Physics ∩ ML”, Microsoft Research Redmond |
| 2017 | HenryFest: Tying Particles and Strings to the Cosmos, Cornell University |
| 2016 | Local Organizing Committee, Strings 2016, Beijing |
| 2015 | Gordon Research Conference on String Theory and Cosmology |
In addition, Prof. Shiu co-chaired the 10-th International String Phenomenology Conference in Madison in 2011. He also served on numerous international advisory or program committees of international conferences such as String Phenomenology, SUSY, PASCOS, and ICHEP.