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LSU Physics Professor Receives NSF CAREER Award

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 29, 2015

BATON ROUGE - LSU Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy Parampreet Singh has received a five-year National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development, or CAREER, award to support his research on Explorations in Quantum Gravity: Cosmological and Black Hole Spacetimes.

The NSF CAREER award is one of the foundation's most prestigious grants awarded to promising junior faculty who effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization. Singh will receive $400,000 for understanding the resolution of singularities, such as the Big Bang and inside black holes, using techniques of quantum gravity. Quantum gravity is a union of quantum theory and gravitational physics that aims to address many unanswered fundamental questions in theoretical physics. Singh will use analytical, phenomenological and high performance computing tools to extract physics of quantum gravitational spacetimes.

"Understanding the physical implications of quantum gravity is vital to understanding the very first moments in the birth of our universe, the very last moments in a gravitational collapse and to overcome limitations of Einstein's theory of general relativity," Singh said. "The NSF CAREER award will play an important role in flourishing my research group and supporting research activities aimed at understanding the physics at the Planck scale, and its effects in the very early universe and inside black holes."

Parampreet Singh

The educational component of the award is designed to enhance student learning and interaction and promote scientific culture to school-age students. It incorporates novel teaching methods, which aim to engage students more actively in the classrooms including exhibits, demonstrations and public lectures.

Singh earned his bachelor's degree from S G T B Khalsa College in Delhi and master's degree from University of Delhi, both in physics. He received his Ph.D. in physics from Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Pune. He was a post-doctoral researcher at Penn State and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. In 2014, he won the Vainu Bappu gold medal of the Astronomical Society of India for his work on quantum cosmology

His research interests are focused on understanding the physics of quantum gravity in cosmological and black hole spacetimes, and the way properties of the classical spacetime we live in emerge from the quantum spacetime.


About the NSF CAREER Award

The Faculty Early Career Development, or CAREER, Program is a foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards in support of the early career development activities of those teacher-scholars who most effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization.

Such activities should build a firm foundation for a lifetime of integrated contributions to research and education. NSF encourages submission of CAREER proposals from junior faculty members at all CAREER-eligible organizations and especially encourages women, members of underrepresented minority groups and persons with disabilities to apply.

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Mimi LaValle
LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy
225-439-5633
mlavall@lsu.edu

Alison Satake
LSU Media Relations
225-578-3870
asatake@lsu.edu

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Last Updated: October 29, 2015