Mariangela Lisanti (born September 2, 1983) is an American

theoretical physicist Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experime ...

and an Associate Professor of physics at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

. Her work focuses on understanding dark matter and dark energy using tools developed through

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

Biography

Mariangela Lisanti was born in 1983 to Anna and Anthony Lisanti, who had immigrated to the United States from Italy. She grew up in Pelham Gardens, a neighborhood in

The Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

, New York, and later attended Staples High School in

Westport, Connecticut Westport is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, along the Long Island Sound within Connecticut's Gold Coast. It is northeast of New York City. The town had a population of 27,141 according to the 2020 U.S. Census. History ...

. In the summer after her junior year of high school, she completed an internship with Mark Reed, a professor of physics at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

. During her internship, she designed and built a device to measure single-atom conductance across a

nanowire A nanowire is a nanostructure in the form of a wire with the diameter of the order of a nanometre (10−9 metres). More generally, nanowires can be defined as structures that have a thickness or diameter constrained to tens of nanometers or less ...

; the materials cost $35. She won the

Siemens Competition The Siemens Competition was a science competition for US high school students funded by the Siemens Foundation, which was administered by the College Board from 1999-2013 and by Discovery Education from 2014–2017. The Siemens Foundation released ...

national finals in 2000 with the device she built at Yale and her research on

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistr ...

. She went on to win first place in the 2001

Intel Science Talent Search The Regeneron Science Talent Search, known for its first 57 years as the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, and then as the Intel Science Talent Search (Intel STS) from 1998 through 2016, is a research-based science competition in the United Sta ...

. This made her the first student to win first place in both the Intel Science Talent Search and the Siemens Competition and she was included in the ''

MIT Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and editorially independent of the university. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "The" in ...

TR35 The Innovators Under 35 is a peer-reviewed annual award and listicle published by ''MIT Technology Review'' magazine, naming the world's top 35 innovators under the age of 35. at ''Technology Review'' with lists of winners at technologyreview.com ...

list of the world's top under-35 innovators in 2002, when she was 18 years old. Lisanti completed her bachelor's degree in condensed matter physics at

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 ...

and earned a Ph.D. in

high-energy 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) a ...

at Stanford University. In 2010, she joined the

Center for Theoretical Science as an associate research scholar and became an Assistant Professor in 2013. Her best-known research has been on the

phenomenology Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...

collider A collider is a type of particle accelerator which brings two opposing particle beams together such that the particles collide. Colliders may either be ring accelerators or linear accelerators. Colliders are used as a research tool in particl ...

physics. She has encouraged the use of simplified search strategy models in the observation of new particles from collider data, an approach that was consequently adopted by groups using the Large Hadron Collider. She has also described theoretical models concerning

dark matter Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe. Dark matter is called "dark" because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means it does not a ...

, and in 2014 she co-authored a paper predicting the times of year when dark matter particle density is greatest. She was a 2013 regional finalist in the

Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists was established in 2007 through a partnership between the Blavatnik Family Foundation, headed by Leonard Blavatnik (Russian: Леонид Валентинович Блаватник), chairman of Access Indust ...

. In May 2021, Lisanti and her team received funding from the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Transformative Technology Fund to build new tools using AI to support the search for new physical laws applying to dark matter and dark energy.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lisanti, Mariangela American astrophysicists Particle physicists Theoretical physicists 1983 births Living people American women physicists Princeton University faculty Harvard University alumni Stanford University alumni American people of Italian descent People from Westport, Connecticut Staples High School alumni 21st-century American physicists 21st-century American women scientists Scientists from the Bronx American women academics