Herman Verlinde received his BA (1985) and his PhD (1988) in Theoretical Physics from Utrecht University. His graduate adviser was Gerard 't Hooft (NB 1999). In 1988, Verlinde came to Princeton University, where he was Assistant Professor from 1990 until 1995. In 1994, he moved to the University of Amsterdam, where he was a Fellow of the Royal Dutch Academy of Science from 1994 to 1995 and founded the String Theory Group. He became Professor of Physics at the University of Amsterdam in 1995. Verlinde returned to Princeton University as Professor of Physics in 1998. He is the twin brother of Erik Verlinde.
Verlinde's research interest is in string theory, quantum field theory and black hole physics. For his PhD thesis, he developed the mathematical tools for computing scattering amplitudes in superstring theory. In the late '80's and early 90's, he made important contributions to conformal field theory and topological quantum field theory. He is one of the inventors of Matrix String Theory, a non-perturbative formulation formulation of superstring theory as a 2-dimensional large N gauge theory. Since 2000, Verlinde has worked on string compactifications and their application to models of inflation, supersymmetry breaking and particle physics. He constructed the first string realizations of models with warped extra dimensions and of quantum field theories with metastable supersymmetry breaking.
Verlinde received several awards for his research, including a Fellowship of the Royal Dutch Academy of Science, a PIONEER fellowship of the Dutch Organisation of Fundamental Research and Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, and a a David and Lucille Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering.