I am a Professor of Physics at Princeton University. I am primarily a quantum condensed matter theorist with a focus on "strongly correlated" systems, although inevitably I also work on problems in classical statistical mechanics as do all members of my tribe. The term strongly correlated refers to materials in which the interactions among the electrons are important, even for a qualitative understanding of their behavior. This is in contrast to the textbook examples of metals, semiconductors and insulators, whose behavior is largely explicable in terms of independent electrons.

My work has ranged over quantum Hall systems, superconductors, magnets and, more recently, artificial systems. Colleagues will associate me with terms like skyrmions, resonating valence bonds, magnetic monopoles and time crystals. The latter two made an appearance on Big Bang Theory and Star Trek respectively which has its uses.

I also founded and continue to direct a program on India at the Center for International Security Studies at the Woodrow Wilson School. Prior to that I co-founded and co-directed a progam on Oil, Energy and the Middle East for some years. I was among the founders of the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science and also founded the PCCM Summer School in Condensed Matter Physics.