Cumrun Vafa is an Iranian-American leading string theorist from Harvard University where he started as a Harvard Junior Fellow. He is a recipient of the 2008 Dirac Medal. Cumrun Vafa was born in Tehran, Iran in 1960. He graduated from Alborz High School and went to the US in 1977. He got his undergraduate degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a double major in physics and mathematics. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1985. He then became a junior fellow at Harvard, where he later got a junior faculty position. He is also a trustee of Network of Iranians for Knowledge and Innovation (NIKI).
In December 2016 it was announced that the 2017 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was awarded to Dr. Cumrun Vafa.
