Gary Horowitz
Co-Investigator
Gary Horowitz is a Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is one of the PI’s of this Simons collaboration. Horowitz is interested in both classical and quantum gravity, especially questions involving black holes and spacetime singularities. In particular, he has significantly advanced our understanding gravitational aspects of string theory. He played a key role in the discovery of Calabi-Yau spaces (a way to consistently compactify string theory), extended black holes called black branes, the string-black hole transition, and holographic superconductors (a way to relate black holes and superconductivity). Recently, Horowitz’s research interests have returned to classical gravity and he shown that most extremal stationary black holes are singular.
Horowitz was awarded the Einstein Prize (the highest award by the American Physical Society for work in gravitational physics) in 2023 and the Dirac Medal by the International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste in 2025. He has been a member of the US National Academy of Sciences since 2010, and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2013. Horowitz was President of the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation from 2013 – 2016.
Contact
Simons Collaboration ON Black Holes and Strong Gravity 