Edward Witten is one of the main contemporary physicists contending for the figure of the modern Einstein. He pursues a TOE from the String theory approach. Although a physicist (at least that's the opinion of Atiyah) his work is at the highest mathematical level. He was, indeed, awarded a Fields medal and chances are small that he'll get a Nobel prize.
Some accessible papers include Refs. [1] and [2] as well as "What every physicist should know about string theory".[3]
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