Meenakshi Narain (May 9, 1964 – January 1, 2023) was an Indian-born American experimental physicist. She was a Professor of Physics and Chair of the Department of Physics at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

, and was also Chair of the Collaboration Board of U.S. institutions in the

Compact Muon Solenoid The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment is one of two large general-purpose particle physics detectors built on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Switzerland and France. The goal of the CMS experiment is to investigate a wide range ...

(CMS) Collaboration. She contributed to the discovery of the

top quark The top quark, sometimes also referred to as the truth quark, (symbol: t) is the most massive of all observed elementary particles. It derives its mass from its coupling to the Higgs Boson. This coupling y_ is very close to unity; in the Standard ...

in 1995 and

Higgs Boson The Higgs boson, sometimes called the Higgs particle, is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics produced by the quantum excitation of the Higgs field, one of the fields in particle physics theory. In the Stand ...

in 2012.

Early life and education

Born on May 9, 1964, in

Gorakhpur Gorakhpur is a city in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, along the banks of the Rapti river in the Purvanchal region. It is situated 272 kilometers east of the state capital Lucknow. It is the administrative headquarters of Gorakhpur dist ...

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...

, India, Narain identified as an Asian-Indian American. She completed a B.Sc. at

Gorakhpur University DDU Gorakhpur University (simply known as University of Gorakhpur) is located in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. The University of Gorakhpur is a teaching and residential-cum-affiliating University. It is about . from the d ...

and a M.Sc. at

IIT Kanpur The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT Kanpur) Hindi: भारतीय प्रौद्योगिकी संस्थान कानपुर) is a public institute of technology located in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was ...

. Narain earned her Ph.D. at

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system's ...

with her dissertation titled, ''Inclusive Photon Spectra from Upsilon States'', under the supervision of Juliet Lee-Franzini.

Career

Following her doctorate, Narain was a visiting fellow at the Laboratory of Nuclear Studies,

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, and then as a post-doc at

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory 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 operat ...

from 1991–1995, where she was also a Wilson Fellow. Narain was on the faculty of

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

for eight years prior to joining the

faculty in 2007, where she was promoted to full professor in 2010. Her research activities have included the

DØ experiment The DØ experiment (sometimes written D0 experiment, or DZero experiment) was a worldwide collaboration of scientists conducting research on the fundamental nature of matter. DØ was one of two major experiments (the other was the CDF experim ...

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 operat ...

. She was instrumental in the discovery of the

in 1995. Narain participated in the

CMS experiment CMS may refer to: Computing * Call management system * CMS-2 (programming language), used by the United States Navy * Code Morphing Software, a technology used by Transmeta * Collection management system for a museum collection * Color managem ...

at the

Large Hadron Collider The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle collider. It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008 in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and hundred ...

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 ...

, and contributed to the discovery

in 2012. She served as Chair of the Collaboration Board of U.S. institutions in the

(CMS) Collaboration from July 2018 to July 2022. Narain was a frequent advocate for women in

STEM Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...

fields, and she also promoted science to the general public, in events such as the WaterFire Big Bang Science Fair in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

Selected publications

* *

Awards, honors

* 2000 Outstanding Junior Investigator Award, US Department of Energy. * 2000 NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER) * 2006 Fellowship Program, Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies * 2007 Fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

, cited "For important contributions to the measurement of the properties of the top quark." * 2008 Career Development Award by the ADVANCE program at Brown * 2012 LHC Physics Center Fellow, Fermilab * 2020 Distinguished Alumnus Award, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India

References

External links

* (video, 13:11 minutes) {{DEFAULTSORT:Narain, Meenakshi 1964 births 2023 deaths People from Gorakhpur American academics of Indian descent Boston University faculty Brown University faculty Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gorakhpur University alumni Experimental physicists IIT Kanpur alumni Stony Brook University alumni Fellows of the American Physical Society