Vera Ye

Vera Ye was born in the UK in 1984. As a professor at the University of Oxford, she recruited and trained five promising students she handpicked from around the world. Her 2016 PhD advisees — Saul Durand, Auggie Salazar, Jin Cheng, Jack Rooney, and Will Downing — are now known as the Oxford Five. Under her tutelage, they've become a tightly bonded group of friends who consider one another chosen family. An expert in particle physics, Vera runs her own lab for Oxford that is focusing on an accelerator project. Saul is her research assistant. Auggie considers Vera the smartest person she's ever met, and Jin credits her mentor with giving her life purpose, after Vera taught her how to think like a scientist.