Allan Adams

Allan Adams's work is dedicated to exploring and documenting the world's oceans. In 2016, Allan joined CMS/W and opened the Future Ocean Lab, where his group develops lights, cameras, and sensor systems with which to explore tropical reefs, deep sea vents, and anything in between. After shooting VR documentaries for the Charles Hayden Planetarium (The Reefs of Belize) and for The Franklin Institute (The Stars Below) in 2016, Adams and students are currently developing a custom spherical camera and lighting system with which to create cinematic VR documentaries up to 6 kilometers underwater. The camera is currently slated to go to sea in the fall of 2017 aboard the E/V Nautilus, where Adams will shoot a documentary about the deep-sea vents of the Mathematician Ridge. Prior to joining CMS/W, Adams spent two decades as a theoretical physicist exploring string theory and quantum gravity. Adams earned an AB from Harvard, an MA from UC Berkeley, a PhD from Stanford, was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows, and was a Professor of Physics at MIT from 2008 to 2016. Adams feels strongly about public communication of science; his MIT quantum mechanics lectures have garnered more than 2 million views, his two TED talks more than 3 million, and his 2016 TED talk was chosen by TED as one of the 10 best of 2016.