John Henry Schwarz
American theoretical physicist
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He studied mathematics at Harvard College (A.B., 1962) and theoretical physics at the University of California at Berkeley (Ph.D., 1966), where his graduate advisor was Geoffrey Chew. For several years he was one of the very few physicists who pursued string theory as a viable theory of quantum gravity.
His work with Michael Green on anomaly cancellation in Type I string theories led to the so-called "first superstring revolution" of 1984, which greatly contributed to moving string theory into the mainstream of research in theoretical physics.
Schwarz was an assistant professor at Princeton University from 1966 to 1972. He then moved to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he is currently the Harold Brown Professor of Theoretical Physics.
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Awards
He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Physical Society (1986). He was a fellow of the MacArthur Foundation in 1987.
He received the Dirac Medal of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in 1989, and the Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics of the American Physical Society in 2002. On December 12, 2013, he shared the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics with Michael Green "for opening new perspectives on quantum gravity and the unification of forces."