Biography:Meenakshi Narain

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Short description: Indian-born American experimental physicist (1964–2023)
Meenakshi Narain
Meenakshi Narain.jpg
Born
Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India
DiedJanuary 1, 2023(2023-01-01) (aged 58)[1]
Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.
Alma mater
Spouse(s)Ulrich Heintz
Scientific career
FieldsExperimental physics
InstitutionsBoston University
Brown University
ThesisInclusive photon spectra from Υ decays (1991)
Doctoral advisorJuliet Lee-Franzini

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, and was also Chair of the Collaboration Board of U.S. institutions in the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Collaboration. She contributed to the discovery of the top quark in 1995 and Higgs Boson in 2012.[2]

Early life and education

Born on May 9, 1964,[1] in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India, Narain identified as an Asian-Indian American. In high school, she had to transfer to another all-girls school to study on the math track that led her to physics and statistics as an undergraduate. She had to overcome the family expectation to choose physics over law.[3] She completed a B.Sc. at Gorakhpur University and a M.Sc. at IIT Kanpur. Narain earned her Ph.D. at Stony Brook University with her dissertation titled, Inclusive Photon Spectra from Upsilon States,[4] under the supervision of Juliet Lee-Franzini.[5]

Career

Brown Physics Professor and organizer of the Big Bang Science Fair, Meenakshi Narain, lights the WaterFire.

Following her doctorate, Narain was a visiting fellow at the Laboratory of Nuclear Studies, Cornell University, and then as a post-doc at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory from 1991–1995, where she was also a Wilson Fellow.[6]

Narain was on the faculty of Boston University for eight years prior to joining the Brown University faculty in 2007,[7][8] where she was promoted to full professor in 2010.[9] Her research activities have included the DØ experiment at Fermilab. She was instrumental in the discovery of the top quark in 1995.[10][11]

Narain participated in the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, and contributed to the discovery Higgs Boson in 2012.[12] She served as Chair of the Collaboration Board of U.S. institutions in the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Collaboration from July 2018 to July 2022.[13][14]

Narain was a frequent advocate for women in STEM fields,[15][16] and she also promoted science to the general public, in events such as the WaterFire Big Bang Science Fair in Providence, Rhode Island.[8]

Selected publications

Awards, honors

  • 2000 Outstanding Junior Investigator Award, US Department of Energy.[17]
  • 2000 NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER)[18]
  • 2006 Fellowship Program, Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies[19]
  • 2007 Fellow of the American Physical Society, cited "For important contributions to the measurement of the properties of the top quark."[20]
  • 2008 Career Development Award by the ADVANCE program at Brown[21]
  • 2012 LHC Physics Center Fellow, Fermilab[22]
  • 2020 Distinguished Alumnus Award, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India[23]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Meenakshi Narain, 1964–2023 | Physics | Brown University". https://www.brown.edu/academics/physics/news/2023/01/meenakshi-narain-1964-2023. 
  2. ↑ "Meenakshi Narain 1964–2023" (in en-GB). 2023-03-01. https://cerncourier.com/a/meenakshi-narain-1964-2023/. 
  3. ↑ Huey-Wen Lin; Bryan Stanley. "My Journey as a Physicist: Prof. Meenakshi Narain (She/Her): Season 2 Episode 7". https://sites.google.com/msu.edu/phy480905/season-2-snowmass#h.39lw8go0mxnb. 
  4. ↑ Narain, Meenakshi (1991). Inclusive Photon Spectra from Upsilon States. State University of New York, Stony Brook. 
  5. ↑ "Physics Tree - Meenakshi Narain". https://academictree.org/physics/peopleinfo.php?pid=138477. 
  6. ↑ "Fermilab | For Physicists & Engineers | Fellowships". https://www.fnal.gov/pub/forphysicists/fellowships/robert_wilson/past.html. 
  7. ↑ "Meenakshi Narain: A Physicist Working With Particle Accelerators and Helping Discover the Higgs Boson" (in en). May 25, 2018. https://indianewengland.com/2018/05/meenakshi-narain-a-physicist-working-with-particle-accelerators-and-helping-discover-the-higgs-boson/. "Presently, Ms. Narain is co-leading the effort to establish the vision for opportunities at the collider in year 2023 and beyond. Narain is engaged in research and development towards the construction of the innermost part of detector using silicon sensors. Her research also deals with the analysis of large data sets and provides an excellent training ground for students in data science." 
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Kwon, Diana. "Big Bang Science Fair at WaterFire Providence" (in en). https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/big-bang-science-fair-at-waterfire-providence. "My vision is to make people appreciate science in the same way they appreciate art and music," Narain says. "If we can make people feel that science is a fun thing to do, learn and converse about, I think that could be a way to change our society." 
  9. ↑ "2010 - Physics at Brown" (in en). p. 7. https://studylib.net/doc/18653210/2010---physics-at-brown. 
  10. ↑ Staley, Kent W.; Staley, Staley, Kent Wade (April 5, 2004) (in en). The Evidence for the Top Quark: Objectivity and Bias in Collaborative Experimentation. Cambridge University Press. p. 188. ISBN 978-0-521-82710-2. https://books.google.com/books?id=a69Dp9V0wBEC&dq=%22Meenakshi+Narain%22+-wikipedia&pg=PA188. 
  11. ↑ Sundermier, Ali. "How to make a discovery" (in en). https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/how-to-make-a-discovery. "Narain's groups analysis was essential to the collaboration’s understanding of a signal that turned out to be the elusive top quark." 
  12. ↑ Heilprin, John (July 3, 2012). "Physicists ready data on 'God particle' to explain everything". The Boston Globe: pp. A4. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/105810890/physicists-ready-data-on-god-particle/. "Meenakshi Narain, a physics professor at Brown University who works on one of the teams, said that although she could not disclose what will be announced on Wednesday, this was a "once in a lifetime event," because the experiments have provided enough data to give "at least the first hints of it in a significant way," or to rule out the existence of Higgs." 
  13. ↑ "Professor Narain Elected US CMS Collaboration Board Chair | Physics | Brown University". https://www.brown.edu/academics/physics/news/2018/06/professor-narain-elected-us-cms-collaboration-board-chair. 
  14. ↑ "Narain, Meenakshi". https://vivo.brown.edu/display/mnarain. 
  15. ↑ Chen, Frances (April 22, 2015). "Female academics combat bias in STEM fields" (in en-US). https://www.browndailyherald.com/2015/04/22/female-academics-combat-bias-in-stem-fields/. 
  16. ↑ "Faculty, students reflect on STEM faculty gender gap" (in en-US). https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2022/04/faculty-students-reflect-on-stem-faculty-gender-gap. 
  17. ↑ "DOE Outstanding Junior Investigator Program Awardees". 2009. https://science.osti.gov/-/media/hep/pdf/files/pdfs/OJI_ALL_Awards.pdf. 
  18. ↑ "NSF Award Search: Award # 9984833 - CAREER: A Precision Measurement of the Top Quark Mass". https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9984833&HistoricalAwards=false. 
  19. ↑ "Fellows" (in en). https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/radcliffe-fellowship/fellows. 
  20. ↑ "APS Fellow Archive" (in en). http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/fellowships/archive-all.cfm. 
  21. ↑ "2008 Career Development Award Recipients | ADVANCE at Brown". https://www.brown.edu/research/projects/advance/2008-career-development-award-recipients. 
  22. ↑ "LHC Physics Center | LPC Fellows | Meenakshi Narain". https://lpc.fnal.gov/fellows/Meenakshi_Narain.shtml. 
  23. ↑ "DORA | IIT Kanpur Distinguished Alumnus Awardee 2020". http://www.iitk.ac.in/dora/Prof-Meenakshi-Narain.php. 

External links



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