The following is a guess for what future PhD students of mine might work on :

* Fundamental properties of quantum gravity : properties taught to us by the example of string theory or three-dimensional gravity. For instance: the study of holography through examples.

* The application of holography to strongly coupled gauge theories, planar gauge theories, and other interesting field theories in any dimension. Attempts to construct a dual of a supersymmetric version of quantum chromodynamics.

* The study of two-dimensional solvable field theories (as motivated by their application in string theory).

* Any interesting topic that might become fruitful during the years of the PhD research.

In general, one could say I identity interesting field theory problems through the study of string theory, and I try to solve them, as well as apply known field theory techniques to advance our knowledge of quantum gravity. The program is vast, and often leads to the scrutiny of more specific problems, which might be fairly far removed one from another by other people's standards on delimitations of research topics. This requires my students to study broadly, to be prepared to work on a large set of topics, from very formal to hands-on theoretical physics. I believe interesting mathematical physics problems, whatever their status of applicability or precise degree of difficulty, are worth an attempt to solve them, and I'm happy to share my enthousiasm for this singular enterprise with students.

Pointers for Prospective students