Description:

Stephon Alexander

About the Presenter:

Stephon Alexander is an award winning theoretical physicist of international repute, author, and jazz musician whose work is at the interface between cosmology, particle physics, quantum gravity, AI and music technology. His expertise lays in constructing new theories of the early universe and elementary particle physics that has predictions for the universe at present, such as dark energy and dark matter. He also combines mathematics and tools from theoretical physics into machine learning, the geometry and cognition of musical perception, signal processing and computational algorithms.

Alexander is a Professor of Physics at Brown University, and a past President of the National Society of Black Physicists and is currently the CEO and Founder of the non-profit SoundPlusScience Inc. Alexander was also the Executive Director of the Harlem Gallery of Science. He had previous appointments at Stanford University, Imperial College, Penn State, Dartmouth College and Haverford College. Alexander is a specialist in the field of string theory and cosmology, where the physics of superstrings are applied to address longstanding questions in cosmology. In 2001, he co-invented the model of cosmic inflation based on string theory.

In his critically acclaimed book, The Jazz of Physics, Alexander revisits the ancient interconnection between music, astrophysics and the laws of motion. He explores new ways music, in particular jazz music, mirrors modern physics, such as quantum mechanics, general relativity, and the physics of the early universe. He also discusses ways that innovations in physics have been and can be inspired from "improvisational logic" exemplified in Jazz performance and practice. Alexander is also a touring jazz musician.