ICTP Welcomes New Research Staff

ICTP's High Energy Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (HECAP) section has appointed two new research staff members.  Atish Dabholkar and Sergei Dubovsky will now be part of ICTP's oldest research group, HECAP, which was established in 1964 by ICTP founder Abdus Salam. Dabholkar's research work focusses on string theory, quantum gravity, black hole entropy and unification, while  Dubovsky's main areas of research are the interface between particle physics, cosmology and string theory, quantum field theory, and gravity.

Dabholkar, a graduate of one of India's premier educational institutes, the Indian Institute of Technology, went on to earn his PhD from Princeton University and later held faculty and research positions at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, India, and Centre national de la recherche scientifique, France, respectively.

"Intellectually, physics seemed really exciting to me," says Dabholkar talking about his chosen career path. Physics is not an obvious choice for a bright student from India, where the pressure to pursue more applied (and lucrative) fields like engineering is high, but Dabholkar says his rationale behind studying physics was partly "a romantic decision." "As a young student, I had read about relativity and quantum mechanics, which I found fascinating, and although I didn't really know what it takes to do research, physics seemed to appeal to me."

For Dubovsky the choice to pursue physics grew from his desire to gain a deeper understanding of natural phenomena. Dubovsky completed his PhD at the Institute for Nuclear Research, Russia, with leading theoretical physicist and ICTP scientific council member Valery Rubakov as his thesis advisor. Before joining ICTP, Dubovsky was a faculty member in the department of physics at New York University.

Dubovsky first visited ICTP in 1999 as a student. "Scientifically, it is a very attractive place to work for, and the atmosphere here is very different from other institutes. Many universities, for example, give you a sense that it is a business. I was here for the 50th anniversary celebrations and you see that ICTP has a very unique mission."

Dabholkar echoes this sentiment. "What has been achieved here is a very non-trivial thing: to have world-class infrastructure but at the same time be cognizant of the challenges facing science in the developing world," he says. Dabholkar grew up in a small village in India and has interacted with a whole cross-section of people from different backgrounds. "I can really understand what kind of challenges a person coming from a disadvantaged background has to face to even get started in science, and even if one can change it in small ways it is a big thing," he says.

Both Dabholkar and Dubovsky are looking ahead to working with the staff and students at ICTP. Dabholkar, whose research includes work in unification of forces, a research theme that won Salam his Nobel Prize, hopes to continue making progress in understanding how gravity and quantum mechanics can be harmonized together. Dubovsky hopes to focus on understanding gravity using quantum field theory, to look for different new generation probes to find new physics and to look into low energy experiments.