Michael Dine

Michael Dine was Professor and Chair of the Department of Physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is also a Long-term Visiting Scientist in the Theory Group at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). He is a former long-term member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (1980-85). He is a scholar with contributions to particle physics and to field theory and string theory and their phenomenological applications. He was among the first to suggest that supersymmetry, a hypothetical new symmetry of the laws of nature, might solve some of the outstanding problems of the "Standard Model" of elementary particles. The standard model is a very successful theory explaining the interactions of elementary particles, yet it is known to be incomplete. The principle goal of Dine's research has been to address questions left unanswered by the standard model. Dine's achievements include the proposal of the DFS axion, the invention of gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking, the discovery of dynamical supersymmetry breaking in four dimensions, the Affleck-Dine baryogenesis mechanism, studies of string theory compactification, and supersymmetric models of particle physics. Dine is also known for his theoretical work on a hypothetical particle called the axion, which may account for the mysterious dark matter in the universe. He is the author of Supersymmetry and String Theory: Beyond the Standard Model (2007).