David E. Kaplan is a theoretical particle physicist at the Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins was a wealthy American entrepreneur, philanthropist and abolitionist of 19th-century Baltimore, Maryland, now most noted for his philanthropic creation of the institutions that bear his name, namely the Johns Hopkins Hospital, and the Johns Hopkins University and its associated...

 University. He was a student of Ann Nelson

Ann Nelson

This article is for Ann Elizabeth Nelson the physicist, not actress Ann Nelson who played Mrs. Berg on Fame . Ann Elizabeth Nelson is a particle physicist at the University of Washington. She was a student of Howard Georgi and has been a member of the university's Particle Theory Group since 1994...

. His primary research interest is physics beyond the standard model

Beyond the Standard Model

Physics beyond the Standard Model refers to the theoretical developments needed to explain the deficiencies of the Standard Model, such as the origin of mass, the strong CP problem, neutrino oscillations, matter–antimatter asymmetry, and the nature of dark matter and dark energy...

  with particular focus on the Higgs mechanism

Higgs mechanism

In particle physics, the Higgs mechanism is the process in which gauge bosons in a gauge theory can acquire non-vanishing masses through absorption of Nambu-Goldstone bosons arising in spontaneous symmetry breaking....

 and potentially related physics such as supersymmetry

Supersymmetry

In particle physics, supersymmetry is a symmetry that relates elementary particles of one spin to other particles that differ by half a unit of spin and are known as superpartners...

, new forces, extra dimensions

Extra dimensions

Several speculative physical theories have introduced extra dimensions of space for various reasons:*Kaluza-Klein theory introduces extra dimensions to explain the fundamental forces other than gravity ....

 and dark matter

Dark matter

In astronomy and cosmology, dark matter is matter that neither emits nor scatters light or other electromagnetic radiation, and so cannot be directly detected via optical or radio astronomy...

. He is also exploring connections between high energy physics and cosmology

Cosmology

Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...

. In 2011, Kaplan co-hosted season three of National Geographic Channel's Known Universe documentary series along with Sigrid Close, Andy Howell, Michael J. Massimino

Michael J. Massimino

Michael James Massimino is an American engineer and a NASA astronaut. Mike is a veteran of two Space Shuttle missions, both of which serviced the Hubble Space Telescope , including the historic final repair mission.-Personal life:...

, and Steve Jacobs.

External links

• IMDB
• http://physics-astronomy.jhu.edu/
• http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~dkaplan/
• http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0505265
• http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0302049
• http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0110126
• http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9911293