Philip W. Phillips is a professor of physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a condensed matter theorist whose work focuses on transport and magnetic phenomena stemming from the breakdown of the quasiparticle concept in strongly correlated and topology quantum matter. To this end, he utilizes methods from both condensed matter and string theory such as the AdS/CFT conjecture. Problems of current interest are the copper-oxide high-temperature superconductors, particularly the strange metal and the construction of exactly solvable models for superconductivity for doped Mott insulators. A primary goal of the latter is the construction of a quartic interacting fixed point for Mott physics. He is also interested in physics beyond the standard free-electron paradigm for topological states such as the quantum Hall and spin-Hall effects in half -filled bands. The recent experiments of topological states in 1/4 and 3/4-filled bands illustrate the profound role of strong electron correlations. His work aims at constructing solvable models that reveal how such fractional topological states arise from intertwined strong correlations and topology.
