Mariangela Lisanti facts for kids

Mariangela Lisanti (born September 2, 1983) is an American scientist who studies physics. She is a professor at Princeton University. Her main work is trying to understand dark matter and dark energy. She uses special computer tools, including artificial intelligence (AI), to help with her research.

Early Life and Amazing Inventions

Mariangela Lisanti was born in 1983. Her parents came to the United States from Italy. She grew up in Pelham Gardens, a neighborhood in The Bronx, New York. Later, she went to Staples High School in Westport, Connecticut.

When she was in high school, Mariangela did an internship at Yale University. She worked with a physics professor named Mark Reed. During this time, she designed and built a special device. This device could measure how electricity moved through a tiny nanowire. The materials for her invention cost only $35!

Winning Top Science Awards

Mariangela's invention and her research on quantum mechanics helped her win big. In 2000, she won the national finals of the Siemens Competition. The next year, in 2001, she won first place in the Intel Science Talent Search.

Winning both of these top science contests was a huge deal. She was the first student ever to achieve this! Because of her amazing work, she was named one of the world's top innovators under 35. This was by MIT Technology Review in 2002, when she was just 18 years old.

Education and Research

Mariangela Lisanti went to Harvard University for her first degree. There, she studied condensed matter physics. This is a field that looks at how materials behave. Later, she earned her Ph.D. (a high-level degree) in high-energy physics from Stanford University.

In 2010, she joined Princeton University. She started as a research scholar and then became an assistant professor in 2013.

Exploring New Particles

A lot of Mariangela's well-known research has been about phenomenology in collider physics. Colliders are huge machines that smash tiny particles together. Scientists study what happens to learn about the universe.

Mariangela suggested simpler ways to look for new particles in the data from these colliders. Her ideas were later used by scientists working with the Large Hadron Collider. This is one of the biggest particle colliders in the world!

Unlocking Dark Matter Secrets

Mariangela Lisanti also works on theoretical models for dark matter. Dark matter is a mysterious substance that scientists believe makes up a big part of the universe. We can't see it, but we know it's there because of how it affects other things.

In 2014, she helped write a paper that predicted when dark matter particles might be most dense. This helps other scientists know when and where to look for them.

Using AI for Discoveries

In May 2021, Mariangela and her team received special funding. This money helps them build new tools using artificial intelligence (AI). They hope these AI tools will help them find new laws of physics. These laws could explain more about dark matter and dark energy.