Brown University’s Meenakshi Narain to Take Leadership Post With the Large Hadron Collider

Meenakshi Narain, professor of physics at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, has been selected to lead the collaboration board for U.S. institutions participating in the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the Large Hadron Collider on the border of France and Switzerland near Geneva. She is the first woman to hold the position.

The CMS experiment is an international collaboration of 4,000 particle physicists, engineers, computer scientists, technicians and students from approximately 200 institutes and universities around the world. With more than 1,200 participants, the U.S. CMS collaboration is the largest national group in the global experiment. As collaboration board chair, Narain will represent U.S. institutions and physicists.

Dr. Narain says part of her job is to maintain the research synergy created by the numerous U.S. scientists and institutions involved in the collaboration as they analyze data from the collider’s latest run. At the same time, scientists must prepare for the next stage of the Large Hadron Collider program slated to start around 2026.

“I’m honored that my colleagues from the 50 U.S. institutions that collaborate with the CMS Experiment have chosen me to represent them,” Dr. Narain said. “With this comes the opportunity to promote women and other underrepresented minorities to have the opportunity to develop their careers to their fullest potential.”

Dr. Narain joined the Brown University faculty in 2007 after teaching at Boston University. She is a graduate of Gorakhpur University in India and holds a master’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology. Professor Narain earned a Ph.D.in physics from Stony Brook University in New York.