Mihai Bondarescu

Contact:

Office
California Institute of Technology
Mail Code 452-48
91125, Pasadena CA / Web http://www.theory.caltech.edu/~mihai
Email
Cell 626-628-4992

Education:

·  California Institute of Technology
-  MS in Physics
-  Ph.d, expected / 2001 – present
2003
2006
·  Freie Universitat Berlin
-  Diplom Physiker with minor in Mathematics
-  Heraeus Prize for finishing a 5 years degree in 3.5 and being the youngest graduate of FU Berlin in several years. / 1999 – 2001
2001
2001
·  West University of Timisoara, Romania
-  BS in Physics
-  Merit fellowship
-  Erasmus Exchange fellowship
·  Politehnica University, Timisoara, Computer Science Major
-  Merit fellowship
·  Grigore Moisil Computer Science Highschool
-  Attested as a computer programmer based on a Diploma Thesis and an exam.
-  Many prizes and medals at Mathematics competitions (Olympics) / 1997 – 2001
2001
1998-1999
1999-2001
1997-1999
1997-1998
1993-1997
1997

Work Experience

California Institute of Technology (F-1 visa) / 2001-present
·  Teaching Assistant for Undergraduate String Theory, with Michael Schulz.
- the first undergraduate String Theory class offered at Caltech / 2005
·  Teaching Assistant for Ph1 - lab with David Politzer [Nobel Prize 2004]
- nominated for a Teaching award / 2001–present
·  Teaching Assistant for Ph237 Gravitational Waves with Kip S Thorne [initiator and main leader of the USD 500 000 000 LIGO project and USD 2 000 0000 000 LISA project for Gravitational Waves Detection]
- initiated and organized the publication of video recordings and other materials used in class online and as a DVD series
- later taught the subject at graduate level myself / 2002
Max Planck Institute fur Gravitationsphysik, Golm, Germany
·  research assistant with Ed Seidel, then the leader of the strongest Numerical Relativity Group in Europe and now director of the CCT institute in Louisiana
-  the youngest since the institute was created
-  prize for the best student talk at GR16 in South Africa (the most important conference in the field that year) / 1999 - 2001

Publications:

·  Refereed Research Papers
-  Mihai Bondarescu, Simple solutions to the Einstein Equations in spaces with unusual topology - hep-th 0505057 awarded an honorable mention at the GRG contest and an invitation for publication in IJMPD. (Vol. 14, No. 12/2005).
-  Mihai Bondarescu, Kip S Thorne - A New Family of Light Beams and Mirror Shapes for Future LIGO Interferometers – Accepted by Phys Rev D.
-  Mihai Bondarescu, Miguel Alcubierre, Edward Seidel – Isometric embeddings of black hole horizons in three-dimensional flat space - Classical and Quantum Gravity 19:375-392, 2002
-  Mihai Bondarescu - Orbifolds in Numerical Relativity – submitted to Phys Rev D.
·  Movies & DVD’s
-  Kip. S. Thorne, Mihai. Bondarescu and Yanbei. Chen, Gravitational Waves: A Web Based Course. I initiated and coordinated the publication of video recordings of the class and other course related materials as a DVD series and on the web at http://elmer.tapir.caltech.edu/ph237/
·  Books
-  Matei Stefan, Mihai Bondarescu, Glita Sebastian - Matemetici Speciale, Mirton Publishing House Timisoara 1998
·  Science Popularization
-  Mihai Bondarescu - Teoria Relativitatii din alta Prespectiva - Evrika, November 1999
-  Mihai Bondarescu, Elena Caraba, Iuliana Vatui – Relativitate si mai departe, Arhimede (accepted)
·  Several newspaper articles, TV and radio programs authored by others about me and my work.
·  Appeared in several TV and radio shows about science.

Conference Talks, Public Lectures and Research Seminars:

Summary

-- 11 conference presentations in USA, Germany, South Africa

-- 10 seminars at Caltech, Cornell, Max Planck, U Parma, Romania, etc

-- 4 posters

·  CAM, San Diego, CA
-chaired a Theoretical Physics session / 2005
·  STRINGS 2005, (Poster) July 11-16 2005, Toronto, Canada
- the most important conference in the field this year. / 2005
·  String Theory Summer School, Perimeter Institute,Toronto, ON
- proposed, organized and chaired several student sessions
·  Pacific Coast Gravity Meeting 21, Eugene Oregon
·  East Coast Gravity Meeting 8, Wake Forest, NC
·  TASC 15, UC Irvine CA
·  90 minutes seminar at Cornell university
·  Pacific Coast Gravity Meeting 20, Caltech Pasadena CA
·  CGWA inaugural meeting, UTB – 2 posters
·  2 hours invited talk at a press conference with newspapers and a TV station, Politehnica University, Timisoara, Romania.
·  One hour seminar talk at West University of Timsoara, Romania
·  One hour seminar at Astronomisches Rechnen Institut, Heidelberg, Germany
·  Three seminars, one hour each at Albert Einstein Institute, Germany
·  One hour seminar at University of Parma, Italy
·  TASK 13, Caltech, Pasadena, CA
·  NR 2001, Ngoyama Lion Lodge and Conference Center, Krugersdorp, South Africa / 2005
2005
2005
2005
2004
2004
2003
2003
2003
2003
2003
2003
2001
2001
·  GR 16, Durban, South Africa
-  prize for the best student talk
-  the most important conference in the field that year.
·  Several talks at Western university of Timisoara, Romania
·  Two hours talk at FU Berlin
·  Fruhjahrtagung der DPG, Bonn Germany
·  EU Meeting, AEI Golm, Germany / 2001
2001
2001
2001
2000

Teaching Experience:

·  Organized and taught 2 college level and one high school level summer schools on General Relativity and String Theory in Romania. Form the first one, a student went to MIT and 3 others work with Ed Seidel, my former undergraduate advisor. / 2002-2004
·  Initiated, organized and taught a series of 10 graduate level lectures on Gravitational Waves at Louisiana State University based on Kip Thorne’s Ph237 I TA’d and helped organize at Caltech. / December 2003-January 2004
·  A set of lectures on Modern Physics, including String Theory for outstanding high-school students taught as part of the Cosmos Program at UC Irvine together with Anton Kapustin. / Summer 2004

Students advised and mentored

(*- positions I advised on and wrote letters for)

·  Florin Mingireanu [
-  SURF student at Caltech *
-  transfer student on full financial support at LSU *
-  attended the summer school I organized in Bucharest
·  Razvan Carbunescu [
-  undergraduate fellow with full financial support at LSU *
-  attended the summer school in Bucharest
·  Irina Craciun [
-  undergraduate fellow with full financial support at LSU *
-  attended the summer school in Bucharest
·  Paula Flor Popescu [
-  undergraduate fellow with full financial support at MIT
-  attended the summer school in Bucharest
·  Katie Mack [
-  Caltech undergraduate fellow with full support
-  summer fellowship at AEI *
-  graduate fellowship at Princeton
·  Elena Caraba [
-  my Teaching Assitant on a set of lectures I taught in Romania
-  undergraduate fellow with full financial support at LSU *
-  summer research fellowship at Berkeley
·  Robert Kennedy [
-  high school student
-  takes advanced level classes at Harvey Mudd, Citrus college
-  was my student in UC Irvive
·  Ruxandra Bondarescu (my younger sister) [
-  attended 2 universities in Romania for one year
-  undergraduate at UIUC, finished a BS and a MS in 2 years in USA plus one year in Romania
-  Graduate student in Physics at Cornell University
·  Ioana Bercea [
-  attended my lectures in Romania
-  admitted at LSU, John Hopkins and others * / 1999-present
2002
2003-present
2002
2003
2004-present
2002
2003
2004-present
2002
2003
2003-present
2002
2003
1999-2003
2003
2004-present
2004-present
2004
2000-2001
2001-2003
2003-present
2004-present

Miscellaneous:

LANGUAGES / ·  English, German, Romanian, French – fluent
·  Italian, Latin, Spanish – basic
TEST SCORES / ·  GRE Mathematics Subject Test – 990/990
·  GRE Physics Subject Test – 920/990 / Max
93%

References:

Edward Seidel

Director
Center for Computation & Technology
302 Johnston Hall
Baton Rouge, LA 70803 / David Politzer

Nobel Prize winner 2004
Caltech MC 452-48
Pasadena CA 91125
Michael Schulz
Fromer Caltech postdoc

Department of
Physics and Astronomy
209 South 33rd Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6396 / Anton Kapustin

Caltech MC 452-48
Pasadena CA 91125