Sabrina Pasterski - Quantum Gravity, Black Holes and the Holographic Universe Theory (Video)

In this 11 June 2026 published video, host Shawn Ryan talks with Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski, a first-generation Cuban-American theoretical physicist from Chicago whose life has been shaped by flight and physics. She began flight lessons at age nine and, between ages 12 and 14, built a single-engine Zenith CH 601 XL aircraft from a kit, making her own engineering modifications after fatal midair breakups involving the model. At 16, before she had a driver’s license, she flew the aircraft solo. The FAA later allowed her demonstration flight to validate her modifications before grounding the fleet.

At MIT, Pasterski became the first freshman selected for NASA’s January Operational Internship, received the inaugural MIT Freshman Entrepreneurship Award, interned at NASA Kennedy Space Center and CERN, and graduated first in her MIT Physics class. She earned her PhD from Harvard in 2019 under Andrew Strominger, focusing on quantum gravity, then joined Canada’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics at 27 as its youngest faculty member and one of only three women on staff at the time. She now leads the Celestial Holography Initiative, and her honors include Scientific American’s 30 Under 30, Forbes 30 Under 30 in Science, and the Albert Einstein Foundation’s “100 Greatest Innovators.” She is currently a research faculty member at Canada’s prestigious Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, where she leads cutting-edge research in quantum gravity.

She completed her undergraduate degree in physics in just three years, graduating first in her class with a perfect 5.00 GPA. She was the first woman to top MIT Physics in 20 years. She earned her Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 2019 under the mentorship of physicist Andrew Strominger.  She completed prestigious postdoctoral work at the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science before transitioning into full-time research faculty.

Her work primarily aims to solve the “holy grail” of modern science: unifying Albert Einstein’s general relativity (macro-world gravity) with quantum mechanics (subatomic behavior). In 2014, Pasterski and her colleagues discovered the “spin memory effect,” a phenomenon that may be used to detect or verify the net effects of gravitational waves. She published individual findings on the Pasterski-Strominger-Zhiboedov (PSZ) Triangle in Electromagnetic Memory. Her early papers were famously cited by Stephen Hawking in 2016. She founded and serves as the principal investigator of this initiative at the Perimeter Institute. Supported by an $8 million grant from the Simons Foundation, her team studies whether our three-dimensional universe can be mathematically mapped as a two-dimensional holographic projection

Before dedicating her career to physics, Pasterski was a teenage aviation sensation. Between ages 12 and 14, she built a functional, single-engine Zenith CH 601 XL kit airplane in her father’s garage, implementing her own engineering modifications. At age 16, before earning a driver’s license, she successfully flew the aircraft solo after her work validated safety fixes for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Early in her career, mainstream media frequently labeled her “the next Albert Einstein”. Pasterski has publicly rejected this title, noting that such clickbait headlines create extreme, uncomfortable pressure. To avoid digital distractions and focus purely on research, she maintains an unconventional minimalist profile: she does not use social media and does not own a smartphone, maintaining only her personal log website, PhysicsGirl.com. She has twice been named to Forbes’ “30 Under 30″ list and works actively as an advocate for global STEM education for girls through initiatives like Let Girls Learn.

https://youtu.be/oi6icF-BZfM

00:00 Meet Sabrina Pasterski
14:52 From Aviation to Physics
31:01 NASA, Blue Origin, and CERN
44:09 String Theory and Modern Physics
57:02 Funding Science and Industry
1:10:08 Gravitational Memory Explained
1:23:01 Cosmology and Black Hole Mysteries
1:36:20 Celestial Holography
1:50:52 Death, Consciousness, and Physics
2:01:14 Life at the Perimeter Institute
2:13:16 The Future of Physics and Globa