Arthur Baraway Komar (March 26, 1931 – June 3, 2011) was a theoretical physicist, specializing in general relativity and helping to develop the canonical approach to quantum gravity.

[2] While there, he wrote for Nassau literary magazine, was a four-year member of the Whig-Clio senate, and was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society at the end of his junior year, graduating in 1952 and with an undergraduate thesis reviewing the classical electron.

[3][4] Komar went on to do his PhD at Princeton under the direction of John Archibald Wheeler, which he received in 1956 for a thesis entitled, Some Consequences of Mach's Principle for General Relativity.

He also served as a physics program director at the National Science Foundation,[2] during which time Komar awarded a quantum gravity grant to physicist and author Carlo Rovelli while the latter was at the University of Pittsburgh.

[9] Komar's interests in physics ranged over numerous fundamental and applied concepts, including conserved quantities, space and time, and thermodynamics.