Prestigious Ernest Rutherford Fellowship increases synergies between Southampton physicists and mathematicians

Physicist Masanori Hanada will help broach ground-breaking new interdisciplinary research opportunities at the University of Southampton through a prestigious fellowship.The early career researcher will arrive in Southampton’s School of Physics and Astronomy this October after securing an Ernest Rutherford Fellowship from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).

The five-year fellowship, one of just 12 granted annually, will interface between the University’s String Theory and Holography Group and Southampton High Energy Physics (SHEP) theory group, which are combined within the Southampton Theory Astrophysics and Gravity (STAG) Research Centre.

Dr Andreas Jüttner, a Principal Research Fellow in Physics and Astronomy, says: "The award of this extremely prestigious and competitive fellowship comes at the best possible moment in time. We are concentrating our forces toward computing holographically the quantum mechanical wave function of the early universe by making use of methods from mathematical physics, particle physics and large-scale numerical simulations on state-of-the-art high-performance computers. Masanori has expertise and a strong track record in all of these disciplines that will strengthen Southampton's role as a world-leader in the areas covered by STAG Research Centre."

STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellowships help future scientific leaders establish strong, independent research programmes and seek, in part, to attract outstanding overseas researchers to the UK.

Masanori will be arriving from the University of Colorado Boulder in the USA, where he has been expanding his expertise as a Research Associate. His experience includes spells as an Associate Professor at the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics at Kyoto University, Japan, a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, USA, and a Visiting Scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA.

Physics and Astronomy at Southampton has previously collaborated with Masanori on research themes such as lattice gauge theory, a topic for which the University has established an international reputation. In 2016, the University organised and hosted the International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, which included over 400 attendees from around the world.