Professor Cyril Closset BA MA PhD

• PhD in Theoretical Physics, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, 2010
• MA in Physics, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, 2006
• BA in Physics, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, 2004

Professor Closset is a Royal Society University Research Fellow and a Birmingham Fellow. He obtained a PhD in theoretical physics from the Free university of Brussels (ULB) in 2010. He went on to hold postdoctoral positions at the Weizmann Institute (Israel), the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics (NY, USA) and at CERN (Switzerland).

Since 2018, he has been a Royal Society University Research Fellow. After two years at the Mathematical Institute in Oxford, he joined the School of Mathematics at the University of Birmingham in 2020.

His main areas of research are string theory, quantum field theory (QFT), topological QFT (TQFT), supersymmetry, and the intersection of these domains with pure geometry, in particular with algebraic geometry.

He was promoted to Professor in 2025.

Professor Closset welcomes applications from prospective PhD candidates.

Research themes

• Supersymmetric localisation
• Mirror symmetry
• Canonical singularities
• Topological field theory
• Superconformal field theory

Research activity

The main focus of Professor Closset's research is on mathematical and 'formal' aspects of Quantum Field Theory (QFT) in the presence of supersymmetry. The underlying 'big question' is: How do we use supersymmetry to learn more about QFT at strong coupling? Along the way, there are quite a few beautiful mathematical structures to be uncovered. Many of the problems that he works on arise in string theory, or have deep relations to it.

Postdoc development (support for the career development of the postdoctoral researchers in the school)