Our latest Autumn 2026 newsletter features a special tribute Remembering Tom Kibble after his passing by Arttu Rajantie, a thoughtful article by Sebastián Céspedes on Returning Home, Looking Forward as he secures a permanent academic position in Chile, an introduction to our new Kibble Fellow Bobby Acharya and a few words from the Centre among other highlights.
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You can also read more about the state-of-the-art and fundamental questions we are exploring on our Research page, follow our public outreach and media activities on our Engagement page or on our YouTube Channel or join us as a Friend of the Salam Centre to stay in touch or hear more. Our most recent news and updates, as they unfold, are below.
Upcoming Events:
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- Sunday Oct 25th 2026 at 15:00pm: Join us for the 2026 Solvay Public Lectures at Flagey Studio 4 - Brussels, everyone welcome.
- Sunday Nov 22nd 2026 at 11:30am: Join us at the Kings Place, London, to hear about Bach, the Universe and Everything: The Beauty of Falling, together with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, everyone welcome.
- Wednesday Dec 9th 2026, afternoon: Come and hear bestseller author, radio host and former Stephen Hawking student Christophe Galfard as his share his experience in impactful public engagement, LT1, Blackett, Imperial College London, all welcome.
- December 2026 (precise date TBC): QFFF & theory PhD open day, join us in person or remotely.
Other news and updates from the Centre
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Other news and updates from the Centre
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Other news and updates from the Centre
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Celebrating Profs.Carrillo González, Jiang and Zhong
Congratulations to Prof. Carrillo González for her new appointment in Southampton, Prof. Jiang for a joint position at SIMIS & Fudan and to Prof. Zhong for his position at the Beijing Chinese Academy of Sciences.
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Other news and updates from the Centre
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Seminars
All seminars
Conferences, Workshops & Summer Schools
The Salam Centre hosts major theoretical physics meetings, bringing together European and international research communities. In the past six months alone, over 500 theoretical physics experts from around the world have visited the Centre for dedicated events.
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News and events prior to 2020
News
- Kelly Stelle has been awarded the John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics for his work on fundamental physics.
- Claudia de Rham announced as the winner (Laureate) in the Physical Sciences & Engineering category, of the highly prestigious Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists
- 'Time Tries All Things' at IoP: a collaboration between artist and filmmaker Grace Weir and theoretical physicists David Berman and Fay Dowker.
- Prof. Kelly Stelle has been awarded the John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics for his work on fundamental physics.
- UK lead partner in CNRS International Research Network on Quantum Fields and Strings
- Prof Claudia de Rham is recipient of the Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists in the Physical Sciences & Engineering category.
- Prof Claudia de Rham is joint recipient of the 2018 Adams Prize
- Prof. Mike Duff has been awarded the 2017 Paul Dirac Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics
- Advanced ERC Grant, "Gauge theory - string theory duality: maximally supersymmetric case and beyond", Tseytlin
- Advanced ERC Grant, "Gravity, black holes and strongly coupled quantum matter", Gauntlett
- Consolidator ERC Grant, "Massive Gravity and Cosmology”, de Rham
- EPSRC Programme Grant, "New Geometric structures from string theory", Hull et al
- STFC Consolidated Grant, "M-theory, cosmology and quantum field theory", Waldram et al
- Scott Melville awarded the best PhD talk prize at the BritGrav conference
- Dr Claudia de Rham is joint recipient of the 2018 Adams Prize
- Prof Mike Duff is joint recipient of the 2018 Trotter Prize.
- Dr Claudia de Rham has been honoured in the inaugural UK Blavatnik Awards for outstanding young scientists.
- Congratulations to Prof Mike Duff who is the 2017 recipient of the Paul Dirac Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics
- Shuang-Yong Zhou awarded 1000 Young Talent Award for position as full professor at University of Science and Technology of China
- Prof Carl Bender wins 2017 Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics
- Claudia de Rham awarded a Consolidator ERC Grant, 2017-2022
- STFC Consolidated Grant, "M-theory, cosmology and quantum field theory", Gauntlett et al
- We are pleased to welcome two new staff members to the group, Dr Claudia De Rham and Dr Andrew Tolley.
- We are very sad to announce the death of Professor Tom Kibble CBE FRS who passed away on Thursday 2nd June 2016. See our page of reflections on Tom Kibble's contributions to the Theoretical Physics group and the wider academic scientific community.
- Congratulations to Prof Fay Dowker (General Relativity course) and Dr Tom Griffin (academic tutoring) who have received teaching awards from the Faculty based on our students' assessments.
- Jul 2015 Alex Anastasiou was awarded the P.M.S. Blackett Diploma for a presentation titled "Gravity as the square of Yang-Mills" at the Majorana Centre, Erice
- Joao Magueijo, Giulia Gubitosi and co-authors Giovanni Amelino-Camelia and Michele Arzano have been awarded second prize in the 2015 Gravity Research Foundation Essay Compe
- Tom Kibble knighted June 2014
- Joao Magueijo awarded Leverhulme Research Fellowship 2014-2016
- Leo Hughes awarded Julian Schwinger prize for best student presentation at 2014 International School of Subnuclear Physics, Erice, Sicily Aug 2014
- Jerome Gauntlett awarded an Advanced ERC Grant, 2014-2019
- Aug 2013: Tom Kibble awarded the ICTP Dirac Medal
- Jul 2013: Tom Kibble awarded an IOP Honorary Fellowship
- June 2013 Carlo Contaldi and Arttu Rajantie have been promoted to Professor and Toby Wiseman has been promoted to Reader
- July 2013 Leo Hughes awarded a poster prize at the Graduate School Symposium.
- June 2013 Leo Hughes and Michel Buck awarded prizes for posters in the Postgraduate Symposium.
- May 2013: Mike Duff gave the Schroedinger Lecture at West University of Timisoara, Romania.
- March 2013 Chris Hull (PI), Jerome Gauntlett, Amihay Hanany, Daniel Waldram awarded a major Programme Grant from EPSRC "New Geometric Structures from String Theory".
- Mar 2013: The life and works of Nobel Prize winning Pakistani physicist Abdus Salam
- Jan 2013: Michael Duff involved in West End play Constellations
- Dec 2012: December 2012: Winton PhD Prize awarded to Johannes Noller and Rak-Kyeong Seong
- Nov 2012: Professor David Olive 1937-2012
- Jul 2012: Tom Kibble awarded a Royal Society Royal Medal
- Jun 2012: Toby Wiseman awarded a Rector's Award for Excellence in Teaching
- May 2012: Arttu Rajantie joins the MoEDAL experiment
- Apr 2012: Chris Hull elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society
- Jan 2012: Noppadol Meekareeya awarded the Winton Capital PhD prize
- Dec 2011: Arkady Tseytlin awarded a prestigious ERC Advanced Grant
- Dec 2011: Dr Varqa Abyaneh has made a generous donation to support the activities of the Theoretical Physics Group
- Dec 2011: Jonathan Halliwell awarded an EPSRC grant
- Sep 2011: Fay Dowker promoted to Professor
- Jul 2011: 2011 Dirac Medal awarded to Chris Isham
- Jul 2011: 2011 Rayleigh Medal awarded to Arkady Tseytlin
- May 2011: Faculty Teaching Award given to James Yearsley
- Jan 2011: Daniel Bedingham wins the "Most Courageous Postdoc" award
- Sep 2010: Leron Borsten has won the Prize for 'Best Student Presentation' at the 2010 International School of Subnuclear Physics in Erice, Sicily
- Oct 2009: 2010 Sakurai Prize awarded to Tom Kibble
Events
- "Strings, Geometry and Black Holes", 23rd European String Workshop, April 9-13, 2018, King's College London
- Jerome Gauntlett gave a Royal Institution Discourse on "Black holes and the fundamental laws of physics"
- Meeting on Supergravity, Strings and Dualities to celebrate Chris Hull's 60th Birthday, 28th-29th April 2017, Imperial College London
- Fay Dowker gave a Friends of Imperial College lecture on Quantum gravity : reconciling relativity with quantum theory, 21st March 2017
- Kelly Stelle gave the 2016 Newton Lecture in commemoration of Tom Kibble, receipient of the Institute of Physics Isaac Newton Medal.
- The theory group hosted an amazingly popular public talk on Quantum Black Holes by Prof. Stephen Hawking on 17th October 2016
#hawkingtalk . Thanks to everyone who helped with the event. - Theory Group Celebrates 100 years of General Relativity with lectures by Fay Dowker and Jerome Gauntlett in the Great Hall (23rd November 2015).
- Integrability in Gauge and String Theory (IGST 2015), 13 July - 17 July 2015, London, King's College, UK
- Modern Issues in Foundations of Physics. Chris Isham at 70. Sep 27-28 2014
- COST workshop Foundations of Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Gravity, Apr 24-25 2014
- Symmetry and Fundamental Physics: Tom Kibble at 80, 13 March 2013
- Non-Equilibrium Field Theory in Cosmology, 20-21 September 2012
- Branes, supergravity and M-theory, July 2-3 2012
- Gravity, Black Holes and Condensed Matter, 23-24 April 2012
- AdS/CFT and Condensed Matter, 10-11 January 2011
- Black Holes and Higher Dimensions, 20-24 September 2010
- Numerical approaches to AdS/CFT, large N and gravity, 28 Sep - 2 Oct 2009
- Supersymmetry, Branes and M-Theory:
A Meeting in Celebration of Michael Duff's 60th Birthday, 1-2 April 2009 - KellyFest: Gravity, Supersymmetry and Branes, 24-25 April 2008
- Categories, Logic and Foundations of Physics, 9 January 2008
- Salam +50 Conference, 7 July 2007
- PASCOS 07 Symposium, 2-7 July 2007
- Outstanding Questions for the Standard Cosmological Model, 26-29 March 2007
In the media
- Fay Dowker and Joao Magueijo discuss Time, Cosmology and Quantum Physics in new documentary film "Age of Uncertainty"
- Claudia de Rham writes about massive gravity in the New Scientist.
- Fay Dowker and Stephen Wolfram in discussion.
- Claudia de Rham profiled in The Guardian.
- Arttu Rajantie interviewed by Finnish television on the implications of Brexit
- "Turning gravity upside down" profile of Claudia de Rham and Andrew Tolley's work in "Imperial Stories".
- 'Time Tries All Things' at the Institute of Physics: a collaboration between artist and filmmaker Grace Weir and theoretical physicists David Berman and Fay Dowker.
- Fay Dowker was on the panel, along with Neil De Grasse Tyson, Eric Idle and Brian Blessed, for the 100th episode of "The Infinite Monkey Cage" on BBC Radio 4 and on the iPlayer.
- Jerome Gauntlett gave a Royal Institution Discourse on "Black holes and the fundamental laws of physics".
- Jerome Gauntlett gave a talk on "A Brief History of Stephen Hawking" at ICE Summer Festival, Madingley Hall, Cambridge.
- Profile of Claudia de Rham and her work on Swiss Public Radio.
- Fay Dowker profiled in "The Life Scientific" on BBC Radio 4.
- Mike Duff's course on "The World in Eleven Dimensions'' and debate on the ``Dark Side of the Universe'' on iai TV.
- "Where the Universe Came from: How Einstein's Relativity Unlocks the Past, Present and Future of the Cosmos", New Scientist Instant Expert with contribution from Mike Duff.
- Claudia de Rham’s research at Imperial College was profiled in a short interview broadcasted in Swiss National TV evening news
- Joao Magueijo’s work on testing Variable Speed of Light models was discussed in the New Scientist and the Guardian
- Claudia de Rham was recently profiled in Die Zeit
- Work by Dr Steffen Gielen from the Theory Group on The Big Bounce, an alternative to The Big Bang view of cosmology, has been discussed in Scientific American, in the Daily Mail and Belfast Telegraph, as well as with Hayley Dunning from Imperial.
- Several members of staff talked about the recent direct detection of gravitational waves:-
Fay Dowker on the Today Programme (around 2:55:00 into the programme) on Radio 4, 12th February 2016.
Toby Wiseman on MSN news
Jerome Gauntlett on Jon Gaunt show (from -50:30)
Arttu Rajantie on several local news stations:
- BBC Three Counties Radio (from 02:17:20)
- BBC Radio Nottingham (from 01:26:15)
- BBC Radio Shropshire (from 01:53:07)
- BBC Radio Derby (from 00:46:17)
- BBC Coventry and Warwickshire (from 01:39:37)
- BBC Radio Humberside (from 02:22:02)
- BBC Somerset (from 01:09:50)
- Fay Dowker was on the Infinite Monkey Cage show on Radio 4 as part of a programme celebrating the centenary of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity - check out the podcast of the show (broadcast 8th December).
- Toby Wiseman describing falling into a black hole (also in the Mail) and explaining General Relativity to the BBC
- More on GR by Fay Dowker, Chris Hull and Toby Wiseman here
- Joao Magueijo was on Italian radio, Xmas 2015
- 2015 Arttu Rajantie was on the BBC News Channel and BBC World News on Sunday 5 April 2015 talking about the LHC restart and the MoEDAL experiment which is searching for magnetic monopoles. A report in The Sunday Times covered the demonstration by Arttu and others from the group about this experiment at the Royal Society's Summer Exhibition in July 2015. Another summary of this monopole research and exhibit also appeared in the Imperial Reporter.
- 2015 Joao Magueijo was "Editor in Chief for a Day" for Portugese newspaper Publico
- 2014 Jerome Gauntlett was the Theoretical Physics Consultant for the film The Theory of Everything, 2014
- June 2014 Toby Wiseman appeared on Newsnight discussing black holes
- Oct 2013 Jerome Gauntlett and Tom Kibble podcast on the Higgs boson
- Oct 2013 Jerome Gauntlett and Tom Kibble podcast on the Higgs boson
- Tim Evans's work profiled in Engineering and Technology Magazine - Dec 2013
- Oct 2013 Jerome Gauntlett and Tom Kibble podcast on the Higgs boson
- Oct 2013: Joao Magueijo's and Ali Mozaffari's work on MOND profiled in New Scientist
- Aug 2013: Tom Kibble interviewed in the Observer/Guardian
- Jul 2013: Fay Dowker in The Infinite Monkey Cage on BBC Radio 4
- Jun 2013: Mike Duff debates the limits of physics in The Observer
- Apr 2013: Jerome Gauntlett on the Kibble Fest in The CERN Courier
- Jul 2012: Tom Kibble on the Higgs boson in The Guardian
- Jul 2012: Jerome Gauntlett on the Higgs boson and Tom Kibble, The Telegraph, Daily Mail, Muslim Times, CNBC
- Apr 2012: Tim Evans writing in The Guardian on "Better models for open access"
- Mar 2012: Mike Duff writing in The Guardian on EPSRC's Impact Agenda
- Mar 2012: Jerome Gauntlett was on a BBC Today Programme discussing physics, hippies and creativity
- Mar 2012: Tom Kibble profiled in The Economist
- Jan 2012: Fay Dowker interviewed by The Observer for Stephen Hawking's 70th birthday
- Dec 2011: Jerome Gauntlett interviewed on ITV News and Sky News about the Higgs boson and an Imperial podcast can be found here
- Dec 2011 Tom Kibble profiled in the National Post
- Oct 2011: Daniel Bedingham's work profiled in New Scientist
- Oct 2011: Jerome Gauntlett's work on AdS/CMT in Nature News
- Oct 2011: Fay Dowker, Mike Duff and Joao Magueijo interviewed on BBC2's Faster Than the Speed of Light Programme, aired on Oct 19 2011.
- 2011 Carlo Contaldi interviewed about the OPERA results for Nature News, Science News,La Republica, The Guardian , The Guardian and Hindu Times
- 2 September 2010: Jerome Gauntlett on Channel 4 News
- 13 March 2010: Joao Magueijo in Quirks & Quarks (CBC radio one - listen)
- 9 March 2010: Joao Magueijo in Horizon - Is Everything We Know About The Universe Wrong? (BBC Two)
- 2 December 2008: Fay Dowker in Horizon - Do you know what time it is? (BBC Two - watch)
- 21 February 2008: Fay Dowker in "In Our Time" on The Multiverse, BBC Radio 4