Daniel Longenecker

Daniel Longenecker studies scattering amplitudes in quantum field theory and string theory at Princeton University, where he is a first-year graduate student. His goal is to contribute to the reformulation of quantum field theory by discovering new principles and mathematical structures.

Longenecker received his BA in physics and physics education in 2021 from Cornell University. As a freshman at Cornell University, Longenecker studied cold atom physics and discovered emergent symmetries in soliton dynamics. He then switched his focus to string theory, and discovered a new connection between string theory and mathematical linguistics. He has won various awards and was most recently named a finalist for the LeRoy Apker Award in physics.

Longenecker is also deeply interested in all aspects of education. He has held numerous teaching roles both at Cornell and at Princeton. For the senior thesis of his major in physics education, he designed and taught a course on the subtleties of physics problem solving. With his interest in education, Longenecker hopes to one day start a company to provide access to education for underprivileged children around the world.

Longenecker was born in Maryland, but he moved to Kuwait with his family when he was 5 years old. Due to school closures caused by the Iraq war in 2003, he was homeschooled through the end of high school. He became interested in physics in 11th grade, when he began to teach himself classical mechanics. One year
later, he scored onto the US Physics team.

Outside of academic pursuits, Longenecker enjoys traveling the world with his wife, Addison. He has visited 25 countries so far.