Alex Lazarian obtained his diploma in the theoretical physics group led by
Vitaly Ginzburg. He received his PhD in 1994 from
University of Cambridge. After his PhD, Lazarian spent three years as a postdoc in
Princeton University and one year as a research associate at
Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics. Since 1998, he has been working as a professor at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison. Professor Alex Lazarian is a world-renowned expert on MHD turbulence, magnetic reconnection, dynamo theory, and interstellar dust, as well as developing innovative techniques to study magnetic fields. In 1998, together with
Bruce T. Draine, Lazarian proposed a
spinning dust model that successfully explains the origin of anomalous microwave emission discovered by
Cosmic Background Explorer. In 1999, Lazarian with
Ethan Vishniac proposed a turbulent magnetic reconnection model, which posits that reconnection gets fast and is independent of resistivity due to turbulence. This Lazarian-Vishniac model is successfully tested with numerical simulations and provides a universal solution of the magnetic reconnection in astrophysics as turbulence is ubiquitous in astrophysical environments. In 2007, with Thiem Hoang, Lazarian introduced an analytical model of radiative torques (RAT) and RAT alignment theory, leading to the quantitative era of grain alignment. The RAT theory was successfully tested with observations and has become a foundational theory to interpret polarization data. ==Selected publications==