Grant Remmen, PhD

Grant Remmen is a James Arthur Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics at New York University.

In his work he undertakes research on problems including the Weak Gravity Conjecture, bounding quantum corrections to effective field theories ranging from the Standard Model to Einstein’s equations,  proving theorems in general relativity, reformulations of graviton perturbation theory, cosmic inflation, and testing conjectures for emergent spacetime, gravity, and holography.

From 2020 to 2023, he was a postdoctoral scholar at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics and Fundamental Physics Fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara. From 2017 to 2020, he was a Miller Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, conducting postdoctoral work in theoretical physics. In 2017, he received his PhD in physics from the California Institute of Technology. While at Caltech, he received the John Stager Stemple Memorial Prize in Physics for outstanding research. he was honored by the American Physical Society with the J. J. and Noriko Sakurai Dissertation Award in Theoretical Particle Physics.

In 2012, he graduated summa cum laude with high distinction from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities with a triple major B.S. in physics, astrophysics, and mathematics. He was named a United States Presidential Scholar in 2008, a Goldwater Scholar in 2010, and received the Chambliss medal for exemplary student research from the American Astronomical Society in 2011. As an undergraduate, he received the Dean’s Summer International Student Scholarship from University College London, enabling him to conduct research on multi-body relativistic gravitational systems at Mullard Space Science Laboratory in 2011.

Remmen was born and raised in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. Outside of physics, he is an enthusiastic musician and, with his brother, Cole, has written and composed two full-length musicals, which have both premiered as mainstage productions at Caltech: Boldly Go! (2016), a Star Trek musical parody, and From the Earth to the Moon (2022), based on the classic Jules Verne novel. At Caltech, he served on the Graduate Student Council Board of Directors and Academics Committee as a Physics Representative and Director at Large.