Stanley Deser

Abstract Stanley Deser was Ancell professor emeritus at Brandeis University and visiting professor at the California Institute of Technology. He was a world-renowned theoretical physicist whose accomplishments include the Arnowitt–Deser–Misner (ADM) formulation of general relativity, supergravity with Zumino, the dynamics of flat space with Jackiw and ’t Hooft and many other contributions to the quantum theory of gravity. In the 1980s he was instrumental in securing National Science Foundation approval of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory gravitational wave experiment against much opposition. He had a long association with the UK, dating back to collaborations with Bondi and Pirani at King's College, Gibbons at Cambridge and Sciama at Oxford, where he was visiting fellow of All Souls, as well as Duff, Isham and Stelle at King's College and Imperial College. He was awarded the Einstein Medal in 2015 for important contributions to general relativity, in particular the development of the ADM formalism. Other awards included the Dannie Heineman Prize (1994), fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (1994), honorary member of the Torino Academy of Sciences (2001), member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1979) and fellow of the American Institute of Physics.