Perimeter Institute announces October Festival

Science

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Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, August 14, 2009 –
A who’s who of science communicators and scientists has been added to the Quantum to Cosmos Festival lineup. Michael Belfiore, Pallab Ghosh, Jennifer Ouellette and Anton Zeilinger are among 14 new speakers announced today. They will join over 30 other scientists, theorists and thinkers in Waterloo from October 15-25, 2009 for discussions, new ideas and connections that will be shared with the world on-site, online and on TV through this landmark festival.

The speakers announced today are:
 

Michael Belfiore
Writer
Michael Belfiore is a writer focused on breakthrough technologies poised to change our world and is the author of "The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs". He writes for Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Air & Space, and for emerging technology companies.

Pallab Ghosh
Correspondent, BBC
Pallab Ghosh is a science correspondent for BBC News. Prior to joining the BBC he worked for New Scientist as Science News Editor. This year Pallab was part of a BBC News team that won the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke award for its coverage of space stories. He is the immediate past president and on the Executive board of the World Federation of Science Journalists.

Daniel Gottesman
Physicist, Perimeter Institute
Dr. Gottesman has spent over 10 years working in the field of quantum information and is widely regarded as a world expert on techniques for preventing errors in quantum computing. A former student of John Preskill, he has worked at Los Alamos, Microsoft Research, and UC Berkeley.

John Grant
Geologist, Smithsonian Institution
Dr. Grant joined the Smithsonian in the fall of 2000 as a Geologist at the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at the National Air and Space Museum. He has been a member of the Science Team for the Mars Exploration Rovers since 2002, and is co-leader of the process to select the landing site for NASA’s next Mars rover, the 2011 Mars Science Laboratory.

Leo Kadanoff
Physicist and Applied Mathematician, University of Chicago
Dr. Kadanoff is a professor emeritus of the University of Chicago and a past president of the American Physical Society (APS). He is widely acknowledged for his contributions to statistical physics, chaos theory, and theoretical condensed matter physics.

Michele Mosca
Physicist, Perimeter Institute and Deputy Director, Institute for Quantum Computing,University of Waterloo
Dr. Mosca is co-founder and Deputy Director of IQC and an Associate Faculty member at Perimeter Institute. His principal research concerns the design of quantum algorithms, and he is known for his early work on Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR).

Jennifer Ouellette
Writer
Ms. Ouellette stumbled into science writing quite by accident, and has been avidly exploring her inner geek ever since. She is the author of "Black Bodies and Quantum Cats: Tales from the Annals of Physics" and "The Physics of the Buffyverse". Her work has also appeared in New Scientist, Discover, Salon, Symmetry, and Physics World.

Damian Pope
Senior Manager, Scientific Outreach, Perimeter Institute
Dr. Pope is the Senior Manager, Scientific Outreach at Perimeter Institute. In this role, he combines his background as a researcher in quantum information theory and quantum foundations with a passion for communicating scientific ideas to create and coordinate educational content for students, teachers and the general public.

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Gino Segre
Professor, University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Segre is a professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania. He has been a visiting professor at MIT and Oxford, and was chair of the Physics and Astronomy Department of the University of Pennsylvania from 1987 until 1992. He is also the author of "A Matter of Degrees: What Temperature Reveals About the Past and Future of Our Species, Planet, and Universe".

Donna Shirley
Aerospace Engineer and Author
Ms. Shirley is a former manager of Mars Exploration at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the author of the book “Managing Martians”. She directed the team that built the Rover Sojourner, which was landed on the surface of Mars by the highly successful Mars Pathfinder project in 1997. Asteroid 5624 Shirley is named in her honor.

David Tong
Physicist, Cambridge University
Dr. Tong is a theoretical physicist at the University of Cambridge, a Fellow of the Royal Society and an adjunct professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India. He was recently awarded the Adams Prize that recognizes first-class international research in the Mathematical Sciences.

Mark Tovey
Scientist and Editor, WorldChanging Canada
WorldChanging Canada editor Mark Tovey is a cognitive scientist who studies human response to change, and how to accelerate and catalyze societal change. He recently edited the book “Collective Intelligence”, which deals with how mass collaboration can be used to gain traction on global problems.

Stuart Wolf
Professor, University of Virginia
Dr. Wolf is the Director of the University of Virginia Institute for Nanoscale and Quantum Scientific and Technological Advanced Research (nanoSTAR) as well as a Professor in both the Materials Science and Engineering and the Physics departments. He is known for continuing to push the frontiers in spintronics and quantum information science.

Anton Zeilinger
Professor, University of Vienna
Dr. Zeilinger is a professor of physics at the University of Vienna and the Director of the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In 1997, he and his colleagues confirmed aspects of quantum teleportation by teleporting light particles. He has received more than 20 awards and honours for his work, including the Isaac Newton medal.

There are only nine weeks left until the festival launches! To avoid missing out on news visit www.q2cfestival.com  to join our online community and sign up for regular email updates. For a full list of Quantum to Cosmos festival speakers, as well as details of the festival’s extensive program featuring more than 50 events, please visit www.q2cfestival.com.


About the Quantum to Cosmos Festival

For 10 exciting days this October, Perimeter Institute’s Quantum to Cosmos: Ideas for the Future (Q2C) will take a global audience from the strange world of subatomic particles to the outer frontiers of the universe. Q2C will transcend traditional festivals by streaming events live and on demand, offering virtual interaction with exhibits, and providing special opportunities for students and teachers. TVO, Ontario’s public educational media organization, is the Presenting Media Partner for the Q2C Festival. The Q2C Festival is produced for Perimeter Institute by Title Entertainment Inc.

About Perimeter Institute

Canada's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics is an independent, non-profit, scientific research and educational outreach organization where international scientists cluster to push the limits of our understanding of physical laws and develop new ideas about the very essence of space, time, matter and information. The centre provides a multi-disciplinary environment to foster scientific collaboration in research areas of cosmology, particle physics, quantum foundations, quantum gravity, quantum information, superstring theory, and related disciplines. PI also provides a wide array of award-winning outreach resources and public lectures for students, teachers and the general public to share the joy of research, discovery and innovation. In partnership with the Governments of Ontario and Canada, PI continues to be a successful example of private and public collaboration in science research and education.