Sabrina Gonzales Pasterski is a first-generation Cuban-American scientist who studies high energy physics. Born in 1993 in Chicago, she began her notable career in science at thirteen years old, when she became the youngest person in the world to build and pilot her own aircraft. While still a teenager, she graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in three years—with a 5.00 GPA. While at MIT, Pasterski was part of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment, which aimed to use particle physics detectors to search for things like the Higgs boson, dark matter particles and extra dimensions. She wrote a paper on electromagnetic memory in 2015 while working towards a graduate degree from Harvard, which was then cited in 2016 by Stephen Hawking. After earning her PhD in physics from Harvard University, she became a Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University, and then joined the faculty of the Perimeter Institute at age 27, where she continues to serve today in parallel with her position as the Deputy Director of the Simons Collaboration on Celestial Holography.
In 2015, Pasterski was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 Science list, named a Forbes 30 under 30 All Star in 2017, and returned as a judge in 2018 as part of Forbes’ first ever all-female Science category judging panel. Pasterski’s 2016 work in promoting the Let Girls Learn initiative was recognized by an invitation to the White House, a congratulatory message from the White House played on network television, and featured in Marie Claire‘s January 2017 issue with former First Lady Michelle Obama. According to Google Trends, Pasterski was the third top Trending Scientist for all of 2017. Pasterski’s continuing efforts to promote science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education for girls in Cuba has also been recognized by the Annenberg Foundation and institutions around the globe.
Paterski has her own YouTube channel, called PhysicsGirl, where she shares her wide array of talents, ranging from her 2006 video of her building her aircraft as a 13-year old, to “Power of Girls” presentation at the IMF, where she was introduced by Christine Lagarde, to lectures, tutorials, and interviews on Celestial Holography.
Author: Tara Norgard