Michael Green, a recipient of ICTP's Dirac Medal in 1989, has been elected as the 18th Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, an academic chair founded in 1663 and previously held by such luminaries as Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Babbage and, most recently, Stephen Hawking.

Green is one of the founders of string theory, generally regarded as the most successful candidate to date to unify quantum theory and general relativity, and formulate a consistent quantum theory of gravity.