Eva Silverstein (born October 24, 1970) is an American theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and string theorist.
Silverstein's primary research areas include cosmic inflation, namely the creation of predictive and testable new mechanisms which have enabled systematic understanding of the process and the role of ultraviolet-sensitive qualities in observational cosmology (including string-theoretic versions of large field inflation and novel mechanisms involving inflation interactions); implications of long-range interactions in string theory for black hole physics; and mechanism development for breaking super-symmetry and stabilizing the extra dimensions of string theory.
Her early work included control of tachyon condensation in string theory and resulting resolution of some spacetime singularities (with Joseph Polchinski and others).
Other significant research contributions include the construction of the first models of dark energy in string theory, some basic extensions of the AdS/CFT correspondence to more realistic field theories (with Shamit Kachru), as well as the discovery of a predictive new mechanism for cosmic inflation involving D-brane dynamics (with David Tong) which helped motivate more systematic analyses of primordial non-Gaussianity.
Silverstein is married to fellow string theorist Shamit Kachru; both were doctoral students of Edward Witten.