Sheldon Lee Glashow (born December 5, 1932) is an American theoretical physicist best known for his foundational contributions to particle physics. Born in New York City to Russian Jewish immigrant parents, he graduated from the Bronx High School of Science alongside future collaborator Steven Weinberg before earning his BA from Cornell and his PhD from Harvard under Nobel laureate Julian Schwinger.
In 1961, Glashow extended electroweak unification theory by incorporating a neutral current and proposing the SU(2) × U(1) symmetry structure that now underpins our understanding of electroweak interactions. For this work, he shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics with Weinberg and Abdus Salam. He also co-predicted the charm quark in 1964 and co-developed the GIM mechanism. Currently the Metcalf Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Boston University and an emeritus professor at Harvard, Glashow remains one of the defining figures of 20th-century theoretical physics.
