Erick J. Weinberg

Erick J. Weinberg is a theoretical physicist and Professor of Physics at Columbia University.

Weinberg received his undergraduate degree from Manhattan College in 1968. He obtained his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1973 under the supervision of Sidney Coleman, with whom he discovered the Coleman–Weinberg mechanism for spontaneous symmetry breaking in quantum field theory. Weinberg works on various branches in high-energy theory, including black holes, vortices, Chern–Simons theory, magnetic monopoles in gauge theories and cosmic inflation. He also serves as the Editor of Physical Review D, as well as a visiting scholar at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS).

After receiving his doctorate, Weinberg joined the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey as a postdoctoral researcher. In 1975, he became an Assistant Professor of Physics at Columbia University. He was promoted to full Professor in 1987. From 2002 to 2006, Weinberg served as Chair of Columbia’s Physics Department.

Weinberg is currently researching BPS monopoles and vacuum decay. He has also worked on several branches of theoretical high energy physics, including the theory of spontaneous symmetry breaking, inflation, the theory of supersymmetric solitons, and the theory of vacuum decay via the nucleation of quantum/thermal bubbles.