Janet Conrad

Janet Marie Conrad (born 1963) is an American experimental physicist, researcher, and professor at MIT studying elementary particle physics. Her work focuses on neutrino 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, and the American Physical Society Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award.

Education Conrad obtained a physics B.A. from Swarthmore College in 1985. She then went to Oxford University to complete a M.Sc. in High Energy Physics as a member of the European Muon Collaboration in 1987 then to Harvard University 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 working with Francis Pipkin at Harvard, at her uncle's suggestion. She gained tenure 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. and MiniBooNE,

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

Personal life Janet Conrad was born October 23, 1963, in Wooster, Ohio.

Conrad is the niece of chemistry Nobel Laureate William Lipscomb.

Honors and awards Keasby Foundation Fellowship, 1986-1987 (awarded 1985) Harvard Physics Department (K.T. Bainbridge) Award (1988) Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, 2000 The Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award 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 Amar G. Bose Fellowship, 2014