Prof. Laura Mersini-Houghton is an internationally renowned Cosmologist and Theoretical Physicist leading cutting-edge research in the physics of the universe at extreme energies and the nature of space time, based at the University of North Carolina (UNC). She was born in Albania when it was still under a communist dictatorship. She was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in the United States and is now a regular visiting professor at several universities around the world, including the University of Cambridge.

Prof. Mersini-Houghton has delivered over 200 speaking engagements for both the public and scientific communities on four continents. Her theory of the origins of the universe has attracted international media attention and has been tested by recent observational discoveries, with recognized success.