Andrei Ruckenstein is a Professor of Physics and the Vice President and Associate Provost for Research at Boston University.

After receiving his PhD in physics from Cornell University and spending two years in the Theoretical Physics Group at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Ruckenstein held faculty positions at the University of California, San Diego, and at Rutgers University, where he was the founding Director of BioMaPS, a university-wide initiative focused on interdisciplinary research in biology at the interface with the mathematical and physical sciences.

Ruckenstein has served as the director of the Superconductivity Summer School at the International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy; as President of the Aspen Center for Physics; and as co-founder of the Aspen Science Center, a nonprofit organization promoting K–12 science education and the public understanding of science.

Ruckenstein was the founding president and chair of the executive committee of the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center, Inc., a first-of-its-kind collaboration between Boston University, Harvard, MIT, Northeastern, and the University of Massachusetts, to address some of society’s most complex technological, medical, and scientific challenges.

Ruckenstein is a fellow of the American Physical Society, an honorary lifetime member of the board of trustees of the Aspen Center for Physics, and the recipient of a Sloan Fellowship, an ONR Young Investigator Award, and a Senior Humboldt Prize.