Cătălina Oana Curceanu is a Romanian physicist and lead researcher at the

Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare The Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN; "National Institute for Nuclear Physics") is the coordinating institution for nuclear, particle, theoretical and astroparticle physics in Italy. History INFN was founded on 8 August 1951, to furt ...

. She researches low energy

quantum chromodynamics In theoretical physics, quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is the theory of the strong interaction between quarks mediated by gluons. Quarks are fundamental particles that make up composite hadrons such as the proton, neutron and pion. QCD is a type ...

Early life and education

Curceanu was born in

Transylvania Transylvania ( ro, Ardeal or ; hu, Erdély; german: Siebenbürgen) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains, and to the west the Ap ...

. She became interested in science as a child, and applied to the ''Mathematics and Physics Lyceum at Magurele'' in Bucharest. She attributes her passion for physics to her very skilled teachers. She studied physics at the

University of Bucharest The University of Bucharest ( ro, Universitatea din București), commonly known after its abbreviation UB in Romania, is a public university founded in its current form on by a decree of Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza to convert the former Princel ...

and graduated as a

Valedictorian Valedictorian is an academic title for the highest-performing student of a graduating class of an academic institution. The valedictorian is commonly determined by a numerical formula, generally an academic institution's grade point average (GPA ...

. She carried out her doctoral research using the

Low Energy Antiproton Ring The Low Energy Anti-Proton Ring (LEAR) was a particle accelerator at CERN which operated from 1982 until 1996. The ring was designed to decelerate and store antiprotons, to study the properties of antimatter and to create atoms of antihydrogen. ...

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...

on the OBELIX experiment. She earned her PhD from the

Horia Hulubei National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering Horia or ''Horea'' may refer to: Places in Romania Communes *Horea, Alba *Horia, Constanța * Horia, Neamț * Horia, Tulcea * Hilișeu-Horia, Botoșani Villages *Horea, in Sanislău, Satu Mare *Horia, in Vladimirescu, Arad *Horia, in Surdila-Greci ...

Research and career

In 1992 Curceanu joined the

. She uses the

DAFNE ''Dafne'' is the earliest known work that, by modern standards, could be considered an opera. The libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini survives complete; the mostly lost music was completed by Jacopo Peri, but at least two of the six surviving fragment ...

(DAΦNE) collider at

Frascati Frascati () is a city and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital in the Lazio region of central Italy. It is located south-east of Rome, on the Alban Hills close to the ancient city of Tusculum. Frascati is closely associated with ...

. She is part of the VIP2 experiment (Violation of the Pauli Principle) in the

Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) is the largest underground research center in the world. Situated below Gran Sasso mountain in Italy, it is well known for particle physics research by the INFN. In addition to a surface portion of the ...

. In 2010 she was awarded Personality of the Year by the Romanian Academy in Rome. She works at

on the OBELIX experiment, looking for

Exotic meson Exotic mesons are mesons that have quantum numbers not possible in the quark model; some proposals for non-standard quark model mesons could be: ;glueballs or gluonium: Glueballs have no valence quarks at all. ;tetraquarks: Tetraquarks have two v ...

s, and DIRAC, looking for exotic pionium. She published the popular science book ''Dai Buchi Neri all’adroterapia. Un Viaggio nella Fisica Moderna'' in 2013 with

Springer Springer or springers may refer to: Publishers * Springer Science+Business Media, aka Springer International Publishing, a worldwide publishing group founded in 1842 in Germany formerly known as Springer-Verlag. ** Springer Nature, a multinationa ...

. The book considers concepts of modern physics, including; the

standard model The Standard Model of particle physics is the theory describing three of the four known fundamental forces (electromagnetism, electromagnetic, weak interaction, weak and strong interactions - excluding gravity) in the universe and classifying a ...

black hole A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravitation, gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or other Electromagnetic radiation, electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape it. The theory of general relativity predicts t ...

s and

neutrino A neutrino ( ; denoted by the Greek letter ) is a fermion (an elementary particle with spin of ) that interacts only via the weak interaction and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass ...

s. In 2015 she was awarded a $85,000 grant from

FQXI The Foundational Questions Institute, styled FQXi, is an organization that provides grants to "catalyze, support, and disseminate research on questions at the foundations of physics and cosmology." It was founded in 2005 by cosmologists Max Tegmark ...

and the

John Templeton Foundation The John Templeton Foundation (Templeton Foundation) is a philanthropic organization that reflects the ideas of its founder, John Templeton, who became wealthy via a career as a contrarian investor, and wanted to support progress in religious an ...

s for her quantum physics research. Her proposal considered collapse models and the measurement problem. She used an ultrapure germanium detector to test the radiation it emits. Her recent work involves the SIDDHARTA experiment, looking at the

strong interaction The strong interaction or strong force is a fundamental interaction that confines quarks into proton, neutron, and other hadron particles. The strong interaction also binds neutrons and protons to create atomic nuclei, where it is called the n ...

and

strangeness In particle physics, strangeness ("''S''") is a property of particles, expressed as a quantum number, for describing decay of particles in strong and electromagnetic interactions which occur in a short period of time. The strangeness of a parti ...

. Curceanu was the Australian Institute of Physics Women in Physics lecturer in 2016. In her lectures she asked "''Quo Vadis the Universe". She has spoken about

quantum computers Quantum computing is a type of computation whose operations can harness the phenomena of quantum mechanics, such as superposition, interference, and entanglement. Devices that perform quantum computations are known as quantum computers. Though ...

TED TED may refer to: Economics and finance * TED spread between U.S. Treasuries and Eurodollar Education * ''Türk Eğitim Derneği'', the Turkish Education Association ** TED Ankara College Foundation Schools, Turkey ** Transvaal Education Depa ...

Brașov Brașov (, , ; german: Kronstadt; hu, Brassó; la, Corona; Transylvanian Saxon: ''Kruhnen'') is a city in Transylvania, Romania and the administrative centre of Brașov County. According to the latest Romanian census (2011), Brașov has a popu ...

and

Cluj-Napoca ; hu, kincses város) , official_name=Cluj-Napoca , native_name= , image_skyline= , subdivision_type1 = Counties of Romania, County , subdivision_name1 = Cluj County , subdivision_type2 = Subdivisions of Romania, Status , subdivision_name2 ...

. She won the 2017

European Physical Society The European Physical Society (EPS) is a non-profit organisation whose purpose is to promote physics and physicists in Europe through methods such as physics outreach. Formally established in 1968, its membership includes the national physical so ...

''Emmy Noether Distinction for Women in Physics'' for her contributions to low-energy QCD. She won a Visiting International Scholar Award from the

University of Wollongong The University of Wollongong (abbreviated as UOW) is an Australian public research university located in the coastal city of Wollongong, New South Wales, approximately 80 kilometres south of Sydney. As of 2017, the university had an enrolment of ...

in 2017, researching detector systems for high precision spectroscopy in fundamental physics. She is involved with several outreach and education activities.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Curceanu, Catalina Romanian physicists Romanian women physicists University of Bucharest alumni Particle physicists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) People associated with CERN