Paul Goldbart is a theorist whose research is rooted in the physics of condensed matter but ranges widely within and beyond this subdiscipline. A professor first at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for more than two decades and then for nearly fifteen years at Georgia Tech, the University of Texas at Austin and now Stony Brook University, he and his doctoral, postdoctoral and faculty collaborators have delighted in striving to understand emergent behavior in a variety of condensed-matter settings. These range from nanoscale superconductivity and quantum chaos, to molecular organization in flowing liquid crystals, to universal rigidity and heterogeneity in random solids such as rubber and gels, and on to quantal phases and their role in mesoscopic systems as well as co-crystallization in atom-light systems at ultra-low temperatures and the impact of measurements on quantum liquids. He has also explored foundational issues in quantum information, collaborated on law and economics, and co-authored a mathematics textbook for physics graduate students (available here for free or here and here to purchase) – an outgrowth of his teaching activities, which he continues to find immensely enjoyable.

For some fifteen years, Goldbart divided his time between theoretical physics and various academic leadership roles, including serving as founding director of the Anthony James Leggett Institute for Condensed Matter Theory at Illinois, as School of Physics chair and College of Sciences dean at Georgia Tech, as College of Natural Sciences dean at Texas, and then as provost at Stony Brook. He has also served in various roles for the Aspen Center for Physics (currently as an Honorary Member) and the American Physical Society, and currently serves as a Member of the Board of Directors of Brookhaven Science Associates, which manages and oversees Brookhaven National Laboratory. In these roles he has found deep satisfaction in working with others to empower remarkable faculty, staff and students in their quest to uncover an ever deeper understanding of the world. Grateful for those opportunities and the vistas they brought, Goldbart has now returned to his roots as a researcher-educator, and is reveling in the chance to re-immerse himself, full time, in his first love: theoretical physics.