Tag Archives: Perimeter Institute (PI)

Two teaching fellow positions at Canada’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI)

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A September 25, 2024 Perimeter Institute (PI) notice (received via email) about two jobs offers a short description of the opportunities,

Perimeter Institute is currently accepting applications for two Teaching Fellows to join our Academic Staff in support of our education and training mandates for the 2025-2026 Academic year.

This position will be offered as a 3-year fellowship to commence August 2025, though exceptional candidates may be considered directly for permanent Teaching Faculty positions. Successful incumbents will be called upon to provide outstanding support to all aspects of the programs offered by the Training Programs department.

Teaching Fellows are also encouraged to actively engage in research while at Perimeter in their field(s) of interest. Monetary support in the form of an annual research fund will be provided and active participation in ongoing research related activities at Perimeter will be encouraged.

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All interested candidates are encouraged to apply, however, special consideration will be given to applicants with a research and teaching expertise in the areas of mathematical physics, or quantum matter and machine learning.

Deadline for applications is November 8, 2024. 

Here’s a more detailed description from the PI’s 2025 Teaching Fellow webpage,

Perimeter Institute is pleased to be seeking two Teaching Fellows to join our Academic Staff in support of our education and training mandates for the 2025-2026 Academic year. This position will be offered as a 3-year fellowship to commence August 2025, though exceptional candidates may be considered directly for permanent Teaching Faculty positions. As the successful incumbent you will be called upon to provide outstanding support to all aspects of the programs offered by the Training Programs department.

Most notably, the Perimeter Teaching Fellows provide support to our flagship Perimeter Scholars International master’s program(PSI). As part of this support, fellows will typically give lectures, or support lectures given by faculty, organize and supervise tutorials and manage homework. Fellows may also have the opportunity to organize and deliver learning activities to students in other aspects of the department, including the PhD program, the PSI Start program, and the bridge program, and any other future initiatives and programs which might be developed. Fellows are involved in the admissions process for both the PSI and PSI Start programs, and other administrative duties as needed. Fellows interact on an ongoing basis with students in individual and group study and assist in the evaluations of students. For more information about the Perimeters Scholars International program, please visit perimeterscholars.org.

Teaching fellows are also encouraged to actively engage in research while at Perimeter in their field(s) of interest. Monetary support in the form of an annual research fund will be provided and active participation in ongoing research related activities at PI will be encouraged.

Applicants should hold a PhD in theoretical physics, have the ability to master the material taught in the courses, and have demonstrated aptitude and enthusiasm for teaching physics while ideally still carrying an active presence in the broader research community. Particular interest for this fellowship will be paid to applicants with research and teaching expertise in the areas of mathematical physics, or quantum matter and machine learning.

Applicants are requested to complete a short general information form and submit a curriculum vitae and a list of publications. Additionally, please include a statement describing your interest and experience in teaching, as well as an equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) statement describing your experiences and plans for creating/advancing a culture of equity and inclusion within your learning activities and within the Perimeter community.

If you are pre-selected based on your application, you will be contacted by our search committee to request at least 3 letters of reference on your teaching and research ability, which will be added to your application.

The salary will be commensurate with related experience and reflect any exceptional competencies. We welcome all applicants to apply by November 8, 2024. However, applications will be considered until the position has been filled. 

Perimeter Institute is committed to diversity within its community and especially welcomes applications from racialized persons/persons of colour, women, Indigenous/Aboriginal People of North America, persons with disabilities, LGBTQ2S+ persons, and others who may contribute to the further diversification of ideas. Applicants who require special accommodation in order to complete their application/interview are encouraged to contact accessibility@perimeterinstitute.ca for assistance.

Good luck!

Apply for faculty positions or entry to master’s programme at Canada’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

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I think the title for this post says it all.

Faculty positions

From an Oct. 13, 2020 Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI) announcement (received via email),

Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics is inviting applications for tenure-track Faculty positions in Quantum Matter and Quantum Information Science. For more information please visit our website.

We would be very grateful if you would circulate this information to outstanding early career candidates who may be interested in this opportunity.

Perimeter Institute offers a dynamic, multi-disciplinary environment with maximum research freedom and opportunity to collaborate. Consideration of applications will begin on December 1, 2020; however, applications will be considered until the positions are filled.

Perimeter Scholars International (PSI) master’s programme

From an Oct. 13, 2020 Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI) announcement (received via email),

Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics is now accepting applications for the 2021/2022 Perimeter Scholars International (PSI) program. 

PSI is a master’s-level course in theoretical physics designed to bring highly qualified and exceptionally motivated graduate students to the cutting edge of the field in an inclusive training environment. 

This unique Master’s program, in partnership with the University of Waterloo, seeks not only students with stellar undergraduate physics and/or mathematics track records, but also those with diverse backgrounds, collaborative spirit, creativity, and other attributes that will set them apart as future innovators. 

Program features

– Removal of financial barriers: Most students who receive and accept offers of admission to PSI will receive a full scholarship. Perimeter Institute also helps with travel arrangements and any immigration arrangements necessary. 

– Students learn from many of the leading minds in theoretical physics while earning a Master’s degree from the University of Waterloo 

– Collaboration is valued over competition; deep understanding and creativity are valued over rote learning and examination 

– PSI recruits worldwide: 85 percent of students come from outside of Canada

– PSI seeks extraordinary talent who may have non-traditional academic backgrounds, but have demonstrated exceptional scientific aptitude 

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Early application deadline: November 15, 2020. 
Final application deadline: February 1, 2021. 

Good luck!

The Quantum Physicist as Causal Detective: an Oct. 7, 2020 event

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I love mysteries and am quite interested in the nature of reality (you, too?) and that gives us something in common with a couple of Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI; Canada) researchers. From The Quantum Physicist as Causal Detective event page on the insidetheperimeter.ca website (notice received via email),

In their live webcast from Perimeter on October 7 [2020], Robert Spekkens and Elie Wolfe will shed light on the exciting possibilities brought about by applying quantum thinking to the science of cause and effect.

Watch the live webcast on this page on Wednesday, October 7 [2020] at 7 pm ET.

What do data science and the foundations of quantum theory have to do with one another?

A great deal, it turns out. The particular branch of data science known as causal inference focuses on a problem which is central to disciplines ranging from epidemiology to economics: that of disentangling correlation and causation in statistical data.

Meanwhile, in a slightly different guise, this same problem has been pondered by quantum physicists as part of a continuing effort to make sense of various puzzling quantum phenomena. On top of that, the most celebrated result concerning quantum theory’s meaning for the nature of reality – Bell’s theorem – can be seen in retrospect to be built on the solution to a particularly challenging problem in causal inference.

Recent efforts to elaborate upon these connections have led to an exciting flow of techniques and insights across the disciplinary divide.

Perimeter researchers Robert Spekkens and Elie Wolfe have done pioneering work studying relations of cause and effect through a quantum foundational lens, and can be counted among a small number of physicists worldwide with expertise in this field.

In their joint webcast from Perimeter [at 7 pm ET] on October 7 [2020], Spekkens and Wolfe will explore what is happening at the intersection of these two fields and how thinking like a quantum physicist leads to new ways of sussing out cause and effect from correlation patterns in statistical data.

For those of us on the West Coast, that webcast will be at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2020 and I believe you can watch it here.

The poetry of physics from Canada’s Perimeter Institute

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Dedicated to foundational theoretical physics, the Perimeter Institute (PI) has an active outreach programme. In their latest ‘newsletter’ (received via email on September 19, 2018) highlights poetry written by scientists, (from the ’12 poignant poems’ webpage),

It can be said that science and poetry share the common purpose of revealing profound truths about the universe and our place in it.

Physicist Paul Dirac, a known curmudgeon, would have dismissed that idea as hogwash.

“The aim of science is to make difficult things understandable in a simpler way; the aim of poetry is to state simple things in an incomprehensible way,” Dirac grouched to a colleague.  “The two are incompatible.”

The colleague to whom Dirac was grumbling, J. Robert Oppenheimer, was a lover of poetry who dabbled in it himself — as did, it turns out, quite a few great physicists, past and present. Physicists have often turned to poetry to express ideas for which there are no equations.

Here’s a look at some of the loveliest stanzas from physicists past and present, plus a few selections of rhyming silliness that get an A+ for effort.

Considering his reported distaste for poetry, it seems Dirac may have committed a few lines to verse. A four-line poem credited to Dirac laments the belief that, once past the age of 30, physicists have already passed their peak intellectual years.

dirac poetry

Perhaps the most prolific of all the poetic physicists was the Scottish genius [James Clerk Maxwell] whose equations for electromagnetism have been called “the second great unification in physics” (second to Isaac Newton’s marriage of physics and astronomy).

Maxwell’s best-known poetic composition is “Rigid Body Sings,” a ditty he used to sing while playing guitar, which is based on the classic Robbie Burns poem “Comin’ Through the Rye” (the inspiration for the title of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye). In terms of melding poetry and physics, however, Maxwell’s geekiest composition might be “A Problem in Dynamics,” which shows both his brilliance and sense of humour.

james clerk maxwell poem

– Read the full poem

If Maxwell’s “A Problem in Dynamics,” is a little too technical for your mathematical comfort level, his fellow Scottish physicist William J.M. Rankine penned poetry requiring only a rudimentary understanding of algebra (and a peculiar understanding of love).

rankine physics poem

Richard Feynman was known for both his brilliance and his eclectic lifestyle, which included playing the bongos, safe-cracking, and, occasionally, writing poetry.

– Read the full poem

Although theoretical physics is her specialty, Shohini Ghose is a true polymath. Born in India, educated in the US, and now a multi-award-winning professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, Ghose has delivered popular talks on subjects ranging from climate change to sexism in science. She recently joined Perimeter Institute as an affiliate researcher and an Equity, Inclusion & Diversity Specialist. On top of all that, she is a poet too.

Shohini poem

English mathematician James Joseph Sylvester was a prolific scholar whose collected works on matrix theory, number theory, and combinatorics fill four (large) volumes. In his honour, the Royal Society of London bestows the Sylvester Medal every two years to an early-career mathematician who shows potential to make major breakthroughs, just as the medal’s namesake did. It is only fitting that Sylvester’s best known work of poetry is an ode to a missing part of an algebraic formula.

sylvester poem physics

– Read the full poem

Sonali Mohapatra is a Chancellor’s PhD Student at the University of Sussex and an alumna of the Perimeter Scholars International master’s program (during which she sang on the nationally broadcast CBC Radio program Ideas). She’s also the author of the poetry compilation Leaking Ink and runs an international magazine on creative resistance called Carved Voices. In her spare time — which, remarkably, she occasionally has — she delivers motivational talks on physics, feminism, and the juxtaposition of the personal and the professional.

sonali poem

– Read the full poem

William Rowan Hamilton was an extraordinary mathematician whose research had long-lasting implications for modern physics. As a poet, he was a bit of a hack, at least in the eyes of his friend and renowned poet William Wordsworth. Hamilton often sent his poems to Wordsworth for feedback, and Wordsworth went to great pains to provide constructive criticism without hurting his friend’s feelings. Upon reading one of Hamilton’s poems, Wordsworth replied: “I do venture to submit to your consideration, whether the poetical parts of your nature would not find a field more favourable to their exercise in the regions of prose.” Translation: don’t quit your day job, Bill. Here’s one of Hamilton’s better works — a tribute to another giant of mathematics and physics, Joseph Fourier.

hamilton poetry

– Read the full poem

For some lyrical physicists, poetry is not always a hobby separate from scientific research. For some (at least one), poetry is a way to present scientific findings. In 1984, Australian physicist J.W.V. Storey published a research paper — The Detection of Shocked Co/ Emission from G333.6-0.2 — as a 38-stanza poem. To any present-day researchers reading this: we dare you to try it.

storey poem

Caltech physicist John Preskill is one of the world’s leading researchers exploring quantum information and the application of quantum computing to big questions about spacetime. Those are extremely complex topics, but Preskill also has a knack for explaining complicated subjects in accessible (and, occasionally, rhyming) terms. Here’s a snippet from a poem he wrote called “Quantum Cryptography.”

john preskill poems

– Read the full poem

Nitica Sakharwade is a PhD student who, when not tackling foundational puzzles in quantum mechanics and quantum information, writes poetry and performs spoken word. In fact, she’s performing at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word in October 2018. Though her poems don’t always relate to physics, when they do, they examine profound ideas like the Chandrasekhar limit (the mass threshold that determines whether a white dwarf star will explode in a cataclysmic supernova).

chandrasekhar limit

David Morin is a physics professor at Harvard who has become somewhat legendary for sprucing up his lessons with physics-based limericks. Some are quite catchy and impressively whittle a complex subject down to a set of simple rhyming verses, like the one below about Emmy Noether’s landmark theorem.

noether symmetries

Other poems by Morin — such as this one, explaining how a medium other than a vacuum would affect a classic experiment — border on the absurd.

morin poems harvard

Lastly, we can’t resist sharing a poem by the brilliant Katharine Burr Blodgett, a physicist and chemist who, among other achievements, invented non-reflective “invisible” glass. That glass became very useful in filmmaking and was first put to use by Hollywood in a little movie called Gone With the Wind. After she retired from a long and successful career at General Electric (where she also pioneered materials to de-ice airplane wings, among many other innovations), she amused herself by writing quirky poetry.

katharine burr blodget

I’d usually edit a bit in an effort to drive readers over to the Perimeter website but I just can’t bear to cut this up. Thank you to Colin Hunter for compiling the poems and the write ups. For anyone who wants to investigate the Perimeter Institute further and doesn’t have a PhD in physics, there’s the Slices of PI webpage featuring “fun, monthly dispatches about science designed for social sharing.”