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ManifoldSteve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Author: Steve Hsu
Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Join him for wide-ranging conversations with leading writers, scientists, technologists, academics, entrepreneurs, investors, and more. Language: en Genres: Life Sciences, Natural Sciences, Science Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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How to Build a Research Institute: Thomas Fink of the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences – #119
Thursday, 27 August, 2026
Dr. Thomas Fink is an Anglo-American physicist, author, and entrepreneur who serves as the founding Director of the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences (LIMS).He studied physics at Caltech, where he won the Fisher Prize, and earned his PhD at Cambridge University. His research focuses on statistical physics, combinatorics, and evolvable systems, using these tools to gain insights into physical and biological systems.In 2011, Dr. Fink founded LIMS, the UK's first independent research centre for theoretical physics and mathematics. Located in the historic Royal Institution in Mayfair, LIMS operates like a university research department but with no teaching or administrative duties, allowing its researchers to focus entirely on full-time, curiosity-driven discovery.London Institute for Mathematical Sciences (LIMS): https://lims.ac.uk/Dr. Thomas Fink's Profile at LIMS: https://lims.ac.uk/thomas-fink/Chapter Markers:(00:00) - Thomas Fink: Caltech, Cambridge, CNRS Paris (07:27) - Rethinking Academia (13:05) - Building LIMS (31:18) - Saving Basic Science (33:46) - Endowments Versus Governments (40:28) - AI Reshaping Research Culture (52:17) - Closing Thoughts –Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus.ai, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU. Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve. Announcing this for some friends at Mechanize - a startup that builds environments for training and evaluating frontier LLMs. Its customers include the top AI labs, and it has contributed to the breakthrough in coding capabilities of frontier models. Mechanize is hiring! https://mechanize.work/b/hsu Compensation is extremely competitive. For technical roles, $300-500k. They are also seeking smart generalists. For example: Research Engineer, Alignment: Build evals that test for misaligned model behaviors $500K salary Puzzle Maker: Design interesting and original puzzles that LLMs can’t yet solve $300K salary Mechanize understands that my readership is highly selected. There is a VERY GOOD CHANCE you will be interviewed if you apply via the link above.
