Training
Perimeter is an extraordinary place to earn a PhD, with opportunities to work with some of the world’s most accomplished theoretical physicists and connect with visitors and collaborators from around the world. Students receive their degree from a partner university where their supervisor has a full or adjunct appointment. This year, these partner universities included the University of Guelph, McMaster University, the University of Toronto, the University of Waterloo, and York University.
Many of the exceptional students who graduate from the PSI program stay in Canada to continue their education and research. In 2022/23, 59 percent of Perimeter’s PhD students were PSI graduates.
Of the students who completed their PhDs in 2022/23, many went on to prestigious postdoctoral fellowships, including Nils Siemonsen at Princeton University, Weicheng Ye at the University of British Columbia, and Matthew Yu at the University of Oxford. Others transitioned to careers in industry, including Raeez Lorgat, who co-founded a crypto start-up, Persona, and now serves as the CEO, and Soham Mukherjee, who now works as a data scientist at Shopify.
Perimeter had a total of 70 PhD students from 28 countries in 2022/23.
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PhD students
Resident PhD students Hong Zhe (Vincent) Chen and Maxence Corman received the 2022 John Brodie Memorial Prize. John Brodie was one of the first postdoctoral researchers at Perimeter, and this award is dedicated to creativity shown in research.
Chen’s research centres on modern problems in quantum gravity, including quantum descriptions of black holes. Chen completed his PhD in 2023 under the supervision of Perimeter Director Robert Myers. In fall 2023, he began a postdoctoral position at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Corman’s research focus lies at the interface of gravitational physics and cosmology, exploring compact object mergers and the gravitational wave signals they emit, black holes in cosmological spacetime, and cosmological theories of the early universe. Corman completed her PhD in 2023 under the supervision of Perimeter Research Faculty member Will East. In fall 2023, she began a postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute).
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PhD student
Resident PhD student Jordan Krywonos was one of the winners of the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship in 2023. The award, presented by the Government of Canada, aims to support first-rate doctoral students who are excelling in their research and studies and who have also shown strong leadership skills. Krywonos’s work focuses on the interface between theory and observation in modern cosmology, supervised by Perimeter Research Associate Faculty member Matthew Johnson, based at York University. Krywonos first came to Perimeter in 2020 as a PSI Start intern.
As an independent institution, Perimeter maintains strong partnerships with universities across Ontario and Canada. The associate postdoctoral researcher and associate graduate student programs are one aspect of these partnerships. These programs offer young researchers from partner universities the opportunity to participate in the full range of activities at Perimeter, from attending courses, seminars, and colloquia to collaborating with Perimeter’s world-class faculty.
During 2022/23, the program welcomed 15 associate postdocs, 33 associate PhD students, and 12 associate master’s students, based at a wide range of partner institutions, including the University of Guelph, McMaster University, the University of Toronto, the University of Waterloo, and York University.
