| CV: Dr. Barak Shoshany Also available online: https://baraksh.com/CV/ |
Employment
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Education
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Teaching and course developmentUndergraduate and graduate courses taught as course instructor:
Mini-courses taught at various programs for high-school, undergraduate, or graduate students at Perimeter Institute:
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Research studentsVladislav GaniyevVladislav received his BSc in Physics from the University of Coimbra and his MSc in Physics from the University of Lisbon. He previously worked on traversable wormhole solutions in modified gravity theories and in Einstein gravity with a massive vector field. He started his PhD in my group at Brock University in September 2025. Hazel GiffordHazel received her BSc in physics with a minor in philosophy from the University of Waterloo in Canada, where she previously worked with Niayesh Afshordi. She did her MSc in my group at Brock University from September 2024 to August 2026, and won the 2025-2026 Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS) Award. In her MSc thesis, "D-CTC Fixed Point Categorization: Prevalence of Non-Uniqueness and Physical Selections", Hazel investigated Deutsch's quantum model of time travel, also known as D-CTC, and in particular the non-uniqueness of solutions to the model's fixed point consistency equation, when this non-uniqueness occurs, and whether it can be resolved by introducing noise. Alessandro PisanaAlessandro received his BSc and MSc in physics from the University of Padua in Italy, and was an Erasmus student at Aix-Marseille University in France. For his master's thesis, he worked on the interface of quantum gravity and tensor networks. He started his PhD in my group at Brock University in September 2022. In his project, Alessandro is studying topology changes in general relativity, analyzing topological and geometrical properties of spacetimes. He is particularly interested in the problem of whether wormholes can be created. His results were published in our paper "Wormhole Nucleation via Topological Surgery in Lorentzian Geometry". Alessandro also delivered a talk on this research at Perimeter Institute in June 2025, as part of the "Wormhole Day" event. At Brock University, Alessandro won the Thompson-Harrison Scholarship, Richard L. Hearn Scholarship, Match of Minds Grant, and Dean of Graduate Studies Spring Research Fellowship. Gabriela ValenciaGabriela, an undergraduate student at the University of Valle, did a research project under my supervision, as part of the Mitacs Globalink Research Internship, from June to August 2023. In her project, Gabriela expanded the entangled timelines model previously developed with my student Zipora Stober to account for more general and/or sophisticated paradox scenarios. Gabriela presented her project in the 2023 Brock Undergraduate Research Symposium. Mark SunMark, a grade 12 student at Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School in St. Catharines, did a research project under my supervision, as part of the Faculty of Mathematics and Science Mentorship Program, from September 2022 to February 2023. In his project, Mark analyzed popular depictions of time travel in science fiction, how they resolve time travel paradoxes, and whether they are compatible with known physics. Mark presented his project at the 2023 FMS Mentorship Program Symposium. Ben DobozyBen, an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, did a research project under my supervision, funded by the NSERC USRA award, from September to December 2022. In his project, Ben worked on developing a concrete mathematical definition of faster-than-light travel in general relativity, which is a necessary step toward understanding its feasibility and consequences. Ben presented his project at the 2023 Canadian Undergraduate Mathematics Conference (CUMC). A video of his talk is available on YouTube. Ben SnodgrassBen did a research project under my supervision, as part of the Mitacs Globalink Research Internship, from June to September 2022. At the time he was an undergraduate student at Durham University. After studying for a master's at Cambridge University, he is currently pursuing a PhD in mathematics at the University of Freiburg. In his project, Ben worked on creating a generalized model for warp drives that can transition between reference frames, and used it to construct an explicit spacetime geometry demonstrating that faster-than-light travel using warp drives can lead to time travel. The results were published in our paper "Warp Drives and Closed Timelike Curves". Zipora StoberZipora did a research project under my supervision, as part of the Mitacs Globalink Research Internship, from May to August 2022. At the time she was an undergraduate student at the University of Aberdeen. She is currently pursuing a PhD in astrophysics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In her project, Zipora worked on developing a new model for resolving time travel paradoxes by generating new timelines using quantum superposition and entanglement. The results were published in our paper "Time Travel Paradoxes and Entangled Timelines". Jared WoganJared did a summer research project under my supervision, funded by the Brock Match of Minds Award, from May to August 2021. He then continued to do a research project under my supervision towards an undergraduate thesis, from September 2021 to April 2022. At the time he was an undergraduate student at Brock University. He is currently pursuing a PhD in quantum gravity at the University of Western Ontario. In his first project, Jared worked on making the model previously published with my student Jacob Hauser more realistic, in order to strengthen our argument that time travel necessarily leads to multiple histories. The results were published in our paper "Wormhole Time Machines and Multiple Histories". In his second project, Jared worked on developing a preliminary Python port of OGRe, my object-oriented general relativity package for Mathematica. Alicia SavelliAlicia did a research project under my supervision towards an undergraduate thesis, from January to December 2021. At the time she was an undergraduate student at Brock University. She is currently pursuing a PhD in astrophysics at the University of Toronto. In her project, Alicia worked on showing that if a warp drive is defined in 5 spacetime dimensions, rather than the usual 4, then the negative energy requirements can be reduced to an arbitrarily small amount. The results will be published soon. Michael AstwoodMichael did a summer research project under my supervision, funded by the BUAF Explore Grant, from May to August 2021. At the time he was an undergraduate student at the University of Waterloo. He is currently pursuing an MSc in mathematics at Wilfrid Laurier University. In his project, Michael worked on developing and analyzing a variety of different approaches towards formulating a concrete mathematical model of spacetimes with multiple histories, using both analytical and computational techniques. Katie CurveloKatie, an undergraduate student at McMaster University, did a summer research project under my supervision, funded by the BUAF Explore Grant, from May to August 2021. In her project, Katie worked on deriving the exact conditions under which faster-than-light travel can lead to time travel, for both tachyons and warp drives, with either constant velocity or constant acceleration. The results are posted on GitHub. Jacob HauserJacob did a summer research project under my supervision, as part of the Perimeter Institute undergraduate summer program, from June to August 2019. At the time he was an undergraduate student at Pomona College. Later, he was an MSc student in the Perimeter Scholars International program. He is currently pursuing a PhD in physics at UCSB. In his project, Jacob worked on proving that if time travel is possible, then multiple histories must also be possible, using a model of a time travel paradox that cannot be resolved by assuming Novikov self-consistency. The results were published in our paper "Time Travel Paradoxes and Multiple Histories". Mir JalalJalal did a summer research project under my supervision, as part of the Perimeter Institute undergraduate summer program, from June to August 2019. At the time he was an undergraduate student at Forman Christian College in Pakistan. The project was co-supervised with Daniel C. Guariento of Perimeter Institute. In his project, Jalal explored various modifications to the warp drive metric, to see if they might reduce the amount of negative energy required. He also attempted to find a specific classical or quantum field that could be used as a hypothetical source of exotic matter. |
PublicationsThe following is a comprehensive list of my scientific publications. Students under my supervision are indicated in red. Authors are always ordered alphabetically by last name, not by level of contribution, unless stated otherwise. All journal publications are freely accessible via their arXiv preprints. Peer-reviewed publications
Preprints
Theses and lecture notes
See also: arXiv | INSPIRE | ORCID | Google Scholar |
Scientific computing projectsProgramming and markup languages I am highly proficient with include:
My past and present scientific computing projects include:
Source code for all of my projects is freely and publicly available on my GitHub profile. |
Grants and awards
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Talks and conferences
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Media interviews
See also this YouTube playlist which includes all of the interviews that were made available on YouTube. |
Outreach activities
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Service and organization
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