Patricia Burchat

Patricia Burchat (born 1958) is the Gabilan Professor of Physics at Stanford University who researches experimental particle physics and cosmology. She is interested in mapping dark matter in the universe, and understanding the nature of dark energy. She was named a fellow of the American Physical Society in 2001, and a Guggenheim Fellow in 2005. In 2012 she became a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Early life and education Born in 1958, Burchat grew up in Barry's Bay, Ontario, Canada, and attended Madawaska Valley District High School. In 1981 she graduated with a B.S. in applied science and engineering from the University of Toronto, and earned a Ph.D. in physics at Stanford University in 1986.

Career Burchat held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Santa Cruz from 1986 to 1988, after which she joined the faculty until 1995. She has been a member of the Stanford Physics faculty since 1995,

Research Burchat has been a member of multiple particle physics experiments, including the MarkII experiment at the SLAC Linear Collider and the E791 experiment at Fermilab. She was a founding member of the BaBar experiment at SLAC Her 2008 TED talk, "Shedding light on dark matter", explores these two components making up about 96 percent of the universe.

Awards and honors

2020 — Engineering Alumni Hall of Distinction Award, University of Toronto 2012 — Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science 2010 — Judith Pool Award, Northern California Chapter of the Association for Women in Science 2007 — Walter J. Gores Award, Stanford University 2006 — Gabilan Professor of Physics, Stanford University 2005 — Guggenheim Fellow, Stanford University (2005) 2004 — Sapp Family University Fellow in UG Education, Stanford University 2001 — Fellow, American Physical Society, cited "For her contributions to the understanding of heavy quark physics, particularly in semileptonic weak decays, in mixing of neutral D and B mesons, and in CP violation."