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The story of Sabrina González Pasterski, scientist of Cuban origin trained at MIT and Harvard, has been accompanied by a media label that she prefers to contextualize.
Some media have presented her as "the new Einstein," a comparison that does not resonate with her.
According to the BBC, the physicist born in Chicago in 1993 explained that this name came about when Stephen Hawking cited a paper in which he collaborated with Andrew Strominger.
"First of all, that was said when Hawking had referenced the work I did with Andrew Strominger. I was only in my second year of my PhD," he clarified.
Beyond the flattery, Pasterski questions the narrative that elevates a single figure as the star.
"To what extent can we control the narrative a little better? It doesn't always have to be about standout stars," he reflected, advocating for a more collective vision of scientific progress.
However, their journey has been distinct from an early age.
"When I was a child, I wanted a flying broom, and my grandfather came up with the idea of giving me a Cessna airplane," she said.
Between the ages of 12 and 14, he rebuilt that aircraft and later obtained his pilot's license.
That curious spirit led her to graduate with the highest average in her class in Physics at MIT and then to pursue a PhD at Harvard under the guidance of the renowned physicist Andrew Strominger.
His field of study focuses on quantum gravity, black holes, and the structure of space-time.
He is currently working on what is called celestial holography. "By celestial, we literally mean looking at the night sky: how is the physical Universe encoded as a hologram?" he explained.
The line is based on the holographic principle, which suggests that the information of a gravitational system could be described from a two-dimensional surface.
Regarding his team's goal, he stated: “The objective is to try to find a set of highly compressed laws that will then explain all these other phenomena we are observing. I believe this is the mission we have as a group.”
Pasterski has also emphasized the importance of her identity and her family history.
"What would I be without my mom, and what would she be without her family history? One's identity is hard to separate from one's own reality," she stated.
Far from being compared to Einstein, the young scientist of Cuban roots remains focused on a broader goal: to understand whether the description of the universe can be simpler than it seems.
"I would like people to know the fact that the description of the Universe can be simpler than all the things that arise from it, and that we are trying to find it," he said.
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