Janet Marie Conrad (born 1963) is an American experimental

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

, researcher, and professor at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

studying

elementary particle physics Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) and b ...

. Her work focuses on

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 ...

properties and the techniques for studying them. In recognition of her efforts, Conrad has been the recipient of several highly prestigious awards during her career, including an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the a ...

, and the American Physical Society

Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award The Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award is an annual prize presented by the American Physical Society in recognition of an outstanding contribution to physics research by a woman. It recognizes and enhances outstanding achievements by women physicists in t ...

Education

Conrad obtained a physics B.A. from Swarthmore College in 1985. She then went to

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

to complete a M.Sc. in High Energy Physics as a member of the

European Muon Collaboration The European Muon Collaboration (EMC) was formed in 1973 to study the interactions of high energy muons at CERN. These experiments were motivated by the interest in determining the quark structure of the nucleon following the discovery of high level ...

in 1987 then to

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

to complete a PhD in High Energy Physics in 1993.

Career

Following Conrad's sophomore year at Swarthmore, she spent her summer in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...

working with Francis Pipkin at Harvard, at her uncle's suggestion. The following summer, Conrad worked with him at

Fermilab Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics. Since 2007, Fermilab has been opera ...

. After graduating from Harvard in 1993, Conrad took a position as a postdoctoral research associate at the

Nevis Laboratories Nevis Labs is a research center owned and operated by Columbia University. It is located in Irvington, New York, on the property originally owned by Col. James Alexander Hamilton, the son of Alexander Hamilton, a graduate of Columbia College. Ja ...

, operated by

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. In 1995, she joined the Columbia Physics department as an Assistant Professor. In 1996 she was awarded the DOE Outstanding Junior Investigator Award for a study entitled ''Construction of a Decay Channel for the NuTeV Experiment at Fermilab'' . She gained

tenure Tenure is a category of academic appointment existing in some countries. A tenured post is an indefinite academic appointment that can be terminated only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances, such as financial exigency or program disco ...

at Columbia in 1999. In 2002, she was nominated by the American Physical Society's Division of Particles and Fields for fellowship with the APS, citing "her leadership in experimental neutrino physics, particularly for initiating and leading the NuTeV decay channel experiment and the Mini-BooNe neutrino oscillations experiment". From 2005 until 2008, Conrad was a Columbia Distinguished Faculty Fellow, and was promoted to the endowed position of Walter O. Lecroy Professor in 2006. In 2008, Conrad left Columbia to join the

Physics Department as a Professor. Conrad is a member of several physics collaborations, including

MicroBooNE MicroBooNE is a liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois. It is located in the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) beamline where neutrinos are produced by colliding protons from Fermilab's booster-accelerator on a b ...

, DAEδALUS, Short-Baseline Near Detector ( SBND), and

IceCube The IceCube Neutrino Observatory (or simply IceCube) is a neutrino observatory constructed at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica. The project is a recognized CERN experiment (RE10). Its thousands of sensors are located under ...

. She was previously a member of

Double Chooz Double Chooz was a short-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment in Chooz, France. Its goal was to measure or set a limit on the ''θ''13 mixing angle, a neutrino oscillation parameter responsible for changing electron neutrinos into other neut ...

(2006-2014),

SciBooNE SciBar Booster Neutrino Experiment (SciBooNE), was a neutrino experiment located at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in the USA. It observed neutrinos of the Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) that are produced when protons f ...

(2005-2011),

MiniBooNE MiniBooNE is a Cherenkov detector experiment at Fermilab designed to observe neutrino oscillations (BooNE is an acronym for the Booster Neutrino Experiment). A neutrino beam consisting primarily of muon neutrinos is directed at a detector fi ...

(1997-2014), CCFR/NuTeV (1993-2001), E665 (1984-1996), and EMC (1985-1986). In addition, she has acted as a spokesperson for IsoDAR/DAEdALUS and MiniBooNE, of which she was a founding member.

Other

In 2012, Conrad took part in a panel with the World Science Festival, speaking to the public about neutrinos . Inspired by detector development efforts while working on IceCube , Conrad took part in the development of a low-cost tabletop muon detector . In 2015, Conrad and fellow MIT professor

Lindley Winslow Lindley Winslow is an experimental nuclear and particle physicist, and associate professor at MIT. Biography Winslow grew up in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. Winslow completed her BA in physics in 2001 and her PhD in 2008 at University of Califor ...

were consulted as experts in the culture and science of physics for the 2016 film

Ghostbusters ''Ghostbusters'' is a 1984 American supernatural comedy film directed and produced by Ivan Reitman, and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. It stars Bill Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis as Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Egon Spengler, thr ...

Personal life

Janet Conrad was born October 23, 1963, in

Wooster, Ohio Wooster ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Wayne County. Located in northeastern Ohio, the city lies approximately south-southwest of Cleveland, southwest of Akron and west of Canton. The population was 27,232 at ...

. She was a member of

4-H 4-H is a U.S.-based network of youth organizations whose mission is "engaging youth to reach their fullest potential while advancing the field of youth development". Its name is a reference to the occurrence of the initial letter H four times i ...

as a child in Ohio. Conrad is the niece of chemistry Nobel Laureate

William Lipscomb William Nunn Lipscomb Jr. (December 9, 1919April 14, 2011) was a Nobel Prize-winning American inorganic and organic chemist working in nuclear magnetic resonance, theoretical chemistry, boron chemistry, and biochemistry. Biography Overview Li ...

. Conrad is married to fellow physicist Vassili Papavassiliou, a professor at

New Mexico State University New Mexico State University (NMSU or NM State) is a public land-grant research university based primarily in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest public institution of higher education in New Mexico and one of the state's ...

Honors and awards

* Keasby Foundation Fellowship, 1986-1987 (awarded 1985) * Harvard Physics Department (K.T. Bainbridge) Award (1988) *

AAUW The American Association of University Women (AAUW), officially founded in 1881, is a non-profit organization that advances equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, and research. The organization has a nationwide network of 170,00 ...

American Dissertation Fellowship, 1991-92 * NSF Career Advancement Award, 1996 * DOE Outstanding Junior Investigator, 1996 * NSF CAREER Award, 1998 *

Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) is the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers. The White ...

, 1999 * Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, 2000 * The

from the American Physical Society, 2001 * The New York City Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Science and Technology, Young Investigator, 2001 * Fellow of the American Physical Society, 2003 *

, 2009 * Amar G. Bose Fellowship, 2014

References

External links

Janet Conrad's MIT Web PageA 2007 colloquium delivered by Janet Conrad at Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy3Q: Janet Conrad on the first detection of a neutrino’s cosmic sourceJanet Conrad, Seeker of Neutrinos and Other Curiosities Physicists Say They Have Evidence For A New Fundamental Particle
{{DEFAULTSORT:Conrad, Janet 1963 births Living people Alumni of the University of Oxford Harvard University alumni Swarthmore College alumni 21st-century American physicists Experimental physicists Neutrino physicists 20th-century American physicists People from Wooster, Ohio Fellows of the American Physical Society American women physicists 21st-century American scientists 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American women scientists Recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers