Steven Balbus

Research and career

Following his PhD, Balbus held postdoctoral research appointments at MIT and Princeton University. In 1985, Balbus joined the faculty of the University of Virginia. In 2004, he was appointed Professeur des Universités in the Physics Department of the École Normale Supérieure de Paris. He remained in Paris until 2012, when he moved to Oxford as the Savilian Professor of Astronomy. He retired from this post in October 2024, retaining Emeritus status. At Oxford, he taught astrophysical gas dynamics, general relativity, and supervised postdoctoral researchers and students.

Balbus' research is in theoretical astrophysics. He has made discoveries related to gravitational instability in the interstellar medium and several contributions to the theory of thermal processes in magnetised dilute plasmas. He is best known for a 1991 paper, published with former colleague John F. Hawley, describing what is now known as magnetorotational instability (MRI). Balbus has also contributed to the theory of the Sun's internal rotation. For many years, Balbus lectured an undergraduate course in general relativity at the University of Oxford; several lectures coincided with the discovery of gravitational waves in February 2016. He is the author of the textbook An Introduction to General Relativity and Cosmology: Theory, Observations, and Applications (2026, Princeton University Press).