Alexander Vilenkin

ALEXANDER VILENKIN is Professor of Physics and Director of the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts University. A theoretical physicist who has been working in the field of cosmology for 25 years, Vilenkin has written over 150 papers and is responsible for introducing the ideas of eternal inflation and quantum creation of the universe from nothing.

He received his undergraduate degree in physics in 1971 in the former Soviet Union but was prevented from getting into graduate school because he was blacklisted by the KGB for refusing to cooperate. He emmigrated to the US in 1976, received his Ph.D. at SUNY Buffalo in 1977, and joined the faculty at Tufts in 1978.

His work has been featured in numerous newspaper and magazine articles in US, Europe, Russia, and Japan, and in many popular books.