Jonathan Mboyo Esole
Jonathan Mboyo Esole (born February 24, 1977) is an associate professor of mathematics at Northeastern University. He works on the geometry of string theory.

Early life and career 
Esole was born in Kinshasa and attended Collège Boboto. He moved to Belgium at the age of three and did not return to the Congo for six years. He studied at the Free University of Brussels, the same university his father had attended. In his thesis, Unicité de la supergravité D=4 N=1 par les méthodes BRST, he demonstrated the uniqueness of N=1 supergravity in four spacetime dimensions with minimal assumptions using homological methods. This was a major result in the field as it showed that under mild assumptions that if a free graviton is coupled to a particle of spin 3/2, the only consistent theory will have supersymmetry..

He graduated Summa cum laude in 2001, and won the prize for the best thesis. He joined the University of Cambridge for his doctoral studies to study Part III of the Mathematical Tripos, working under director of studies Fernando Quevedo. He moved to Leiden University for his PhD, working with Ana Achúcarro on cosmic strings. His thesis considered Fayet-Iliopoulos terms and BPS cosmic strings in N = 2 supergravity. He served as a visiting fellow at Stanford University, working with Renata Kallosh. He joined KU Leuven as a Marie Curie Fellow, working with Antoine Van Proeyen and Frederic Denef on string theory and supergravity. He spoke at the Marie Curie Fellow Training Workshop.

Career 
Esole works on F-theory, a branch of string theory at the interface with mathematics. He joined the Department of Physics at Harvard University as a postdoctoral research fellow in 2008. He moved to the Department of Mathematics in 2013, and was appointed Benjamin Peirce Fellow working with the Fields Medal winner Shing-Tung Yau. He worked on SU(5) models and opened the door to the systematic use of crepant resolutions of singularities in F-theory. He also studied D-brane deconstructions in IIB Orientifolds. He delivered a keynote at the Conference for African American Research in Mathematical Sciences. He was a member of the Center for the Fundamental Law of Nature. Esole was appointed as an assistant professor at Northeastern University in 2016. He was awarded a National Science Foundation grant to work on Elliptic Fibrations and String Theory in 2014. This allowed him to investigate F-theory and elliptic fibrations.

In 2017 Esole was named a NextEinstein Forum Fellow. This award celebrates the best young African scientists. He is interested in African education and supports the Lumumba Lab. He is part of the Malaika school, an initiative to teach girls in Kalebuka.

Awards and honours 
2018 International Dunia Award
2017 NextEinstein Forum Fellow
2013 Harvard University Benjamin Peirce Fellow
2006 European Commission Maire Curie Fellow
2001 University of Cambridge Philippe Wiener-Maurice Anspach Foundation Grant
2001 Free University of Brussels Board of Honour
2001 Free University of Brussels A.Sc.Br Prize, Best Thesis in the Faculty of Sciences
1997 Association of Congolese Journalists for Progress, Prix d’ Excellence
1997 Baccalaureate of the Republic of Zaire, Vice Laureate

References 

Living people
1977 births
People from Kinshasa
Northeastern University faculty
Université libre de Bruxelles alumni
String theorists
Alumni of the University of Cambridge
Stanford University fellows