Frans Pretorius

Frans Pretorius is a South African-Canadian physicist specializing in computational physics and numerical relativity. He currently serves as a professor at Princeton University and directs the Princeton Gravity Initiative, focusing on gravitational wave simulations and black hole dynamics.

• Education:
  • B.Sc. in Computer Engineering (University of Victoria, 1996)
  • M.Sc. in Physics (University of Victoria, 1999)
  • Ph.D. in Physics (University of British Columbia, 2002)

His research centers on numerical simulations of gravitational collapse, black hole mergers, and high-energy collisions, contributing foundational work to gravitational wave detection. He has developed adaptive mesh refinement algorithms for solving coupled elliptic-hyperbolic systems in general relativity.

His publications focus on black hole formation in particle accelerators, evaporation of 2D black holes, and high-energy black hole collisions, with keywords spanning numerical relativity, gravitational radiation, and quantum gravity effects.

• Scientific Awards:
  • Sloan Fellowship (2010)
  • Aneesur Rahman Prize for Computational Physics (2010)
  • Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (2016)
  • New Horizons in Physics Prize (2017)
  • Dirac Medal of the ICTP (2021)
  • Galileo Galilei Medal (2021)

He has held positions at the California Institute of Technology (Tolman Fellow, 2002–2005), University of Alberta (Assistant Professor, 2005), and Princeton University (Assistant Professor, 2007). His work bridges computational methods with fundamental physics.