Maria Spiropulu
{{Short description|Greek physicist}}
{{Infobox scientist
|name = Maria Spiropulu
|image = Maria_Spiropulu_August_2024.jpg
|caption =
|birth_date =
|birth_place = Kastoria, Greece
|death_date =
|death_place =
|residence =
|citizenship =
|alma_mater = Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Harvard University
|nationality = Greek
|field = Particle physics
|work_institutions = Caltech
|doctoral_advisor = John Huth
|doctoral_students =
|known_for = Advances in quantum networks, new methods to search for supersymmetry and extra dimensions at colliders
|influences =
|influenced =
}}
Maria Spiropulu ({{IPAc-en|ˌ|s|p|ɪr|ə|ˈ|p|uː|l|uː}}; {{langx|el|Μαρία Σπυροπούλου}}) is a Greek particle physicist. She is the Shang-Yi Ch'en Professor of Physics at the California Institute of Technology.
Biography
Maria Spiropulu received her bachelor's degree in physics from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 1993, and obtained her PhD with the CDF experiment from Harvard University in 2000. For her doctoral thesis, she applied for the first time in hadron colliders a novel double blind analysis method to search for evidence of supersymmetry.{{cite thesis|type=Ph.D.|first=Maria|last=Spiropulu|title=A blind search for supersymmetry in p(bar)p collisions at sqr(s) = 1.8 TeV using the missing energy plus multijet channel|publisher=Harvard University|year=2000 |bibcode=2000PhDT.......132S}} She excluded a large part of the parameter space where supersymmetric particles were expected to emerge.{{cite news|type=article|first=George|last=Johnson|title=Years of Research|newspaper=The New York Times|year=2002|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/05/science/years-of-research-yield-nothing-and-that-s-good-news-for-physicists.html?src=pm&pagewanted=1|accessdate=9 February 2014}}
From 2001 to 2003, Spiropulu continued the CDF experiment as an Enrico Fermi fellow at the University of Chicago, using signatures of missing transverse energy to search for extra dimensions and supersymmetry. In 2004, she moved to CERN as a research scientist with the CMS experiment. From 2005 to 2008, she served as co-convener of the CMS physics analysis group searching for supersymmetry and other phenomena beyond the Standard Model. She was a senior research physicist at CERN until 2012, and has been professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology since 2009. She invented, with her student Chris Rogan and collaborators Maurizio Pierini and Joseph Lykken, a new set of kinematic variables ("razor") targeting the discovery and characterization of new physics at the LHC.
She worked at the Tevatron’s collider experiments and at the CERN's Large Hadron Collider with leading roles on the detector and trigger R&D and operations and breakthroughs in the searches for dark matter and other new physics including the discovery of the Higgs boson. In 2014, she initiated a program to explore and apply quantum computation and artificial intelligence tools towards accelerating discovery in high-energy particle physics and other domain sciences.{{cite web|url=http://www.hep.caltech.edu/~smaria/|title=Professor Spiropulu's website at Caltech|accessdate=22 July 2020|archive-date=9 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191109000451/http://hep.caltech.edu/~smaria/|url-status=dead}}
In 2017, with Caltech, AT&T, Fermilab and JPL, she founded the Alliance for Quantum Technologies and the Intelligent Quantum Networks and Technology (IN-Q-NET), a multi-institutional private-public partnership research program that has produced notable results on fundamental R&D in areas of quantum information science and technology with emphasis on quantum networks. The latest results on quantum internet prototype systems were released in 2020 and feature state-of-the-art quantum teleportation fidelity in time-bin qubits and uptime operations. The project, and a first in theoretical modeling that includes imperfections of the realistic setup and comparison with the data, and overall a first in systems integration of such prototypes with automated monitoring, data acquisition and real-time data analysis systems on par with the Department of Energy’s high energy physics (HEP) projects.{{cite web|url=http://about.att.com/story/beyond_quantum_computing.html|title=Beyond Quantum Computing: AT&T Foundry and Caltech Leading the Charge on Quantum Networking Technologies |accessdate=22 July 2020}}{{cite web|url=https://inqnet.caltech.edu/qlog.html#blog-post-20180912|title=Futurecast: The Future of Quantum Technologies |accessdate=22 July 2020}}{{cite web|url=https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-03/i-cj030520.php|title=Caltech & JPL launch hybrid high rate quantum communication systems |accessdate=22 July 2020}}{{cite journal |last=Valivarthi |first=Raju |date=2020 |title=Teleportation Systems Towards a Quantum Internet |journal=PRX Quantum |volume=1 |issue=2 |page=020317 |doi=10.1103/PRXQuantum.1.020317 |arxiv=2007.11157 |bibcode=2020PRXQ....1b0317V }}
Since 2018 Spiropulu has been the PI of the Quantum Communications Channels for Fundamental Physics (QCCFP) project, supported by the
QuantISED program of the U.S. Dept. of Energy Office of High Energy Physics.{{cite web|title=HEP Quantum Information Science|date=31 July 2024 |url=https://science.osti.gov/hep/Research/Quantum-Information-Science-QIS|accessdate=13 August 2024}} Accomplishments of this project include the first laboratory demonstration of traversable
wormhole teleportation, using a Google Sycamore quantum processor.{{cite journal|url=https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05424-3|title=Nature article: Traversable wormhole dynamics on a quantum processor|journal=Nature |date=December 2022 |volume=612 |issue=7938 |pages=51–55 |doi=10.1038/s41586-022-05424-3 |accessdate=13 August 2024 |last1=Jafferis |first1=Daniel |last2=Zlokapa |first2=Alexander |last3=Lykken |first3=Joseph D. |last4=Kolchmeyer |first4=David K. |last5=Davis |first5=Samantha I. |last6=Lauk |first6=Nikolai |last7=Neven |first7=Hartmut |last8=Spiropulu |first8=Maria }}
Spiropulu is co-chair of the EPP2024 Committee of the National Academy of Sciences.{{cite web|url=https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/elementary-particle-physics-progress-and-promise|title=EPP2024 Committee of the National Academy of Sciences|accessdate=13 August 2024}} She served as chair of the Fermilab Physics Advisory Committee,{{cite web|url=http://www.fnal.gov/directorate/program_planning/phys_adv_com/pac-members.html|title=Fermilab Physics Advisory Committee (PAC)|accessdate=5 December 2015}} member of the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel to the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation,{{cite web|url=http://science.energy.gov/hep/hepap/|title=High Energy Physics Advisory Panel (HEPAP)|accessdate=5 December 2015}} chair of the Forum of International Physics and member of the Physics Policy Committee of the American Physical Society and Chair of the Caltech Faculty Board.{{cite web|url=https://www.aps.org/about/governance/election/spiropulu.cfm|title=
Maria Spiropulu, California Institute of Technology
|accessdate=22 July 2020}} She is a member of the Aspen Center for Physics and serves on the Advisory Panel of the HEP Forum for Computational Excellence. She testified in Congress in May 2017 on the Department of Energy's High Energy Physics Program Funding for FY 2018{{cite web|url=https://indico.fnal.gov/event/11999/contributions/11164/attachments/7297/9394/DPF_communication_2017.pdf|title=
Community Communication Activities, Fermilab
|accessdate=22 July 2020}} and was selected to participate in the 2020-2021 Defense Science Study Group of the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) sponsored by DARPA.{{cite web|url=https://www.ee.columbia.edu/professor-john-kymissis-selected-participate-2020-2021-class-defense-science-study-group|title=
Professor Ioannis "John" Kymissis Selected to Participate in the 2020-2021 Class of the Defense Science Study Group
|accessdate=22 July 2020}}
She is the founder of the Physics of the Universe Summit that explores challenges in emerging and cross-cutting areas of science and technology.{{cite news|type=article|first=Dennis|last=Overbye|title=Physicists' Dreams and Worries in Era of the Big Collider|newspaper=The New York Times|year=2010|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/science/26essay.html |accessdate=22 July 2020}} Spiropulu participated at the White House Summit on Advancing American Leadership in Quantum Information Science, on September 24, 2018{{cite web|url=https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/caltech-awarded-federal-funding-quantum-research-83788|title=Caltech Awarded Federal Funding for Quantum Research |date=25 September 2018 |accessdate=23 July 2020}} and participated in the signing ceremony for an International Cooperation Agreement between the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and CERN in May 2015.{{cite web|url=https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/AP10/20170503/105738/HHRG-115-AP10-Wstate-SpiropuluM-20170503.pdf|title=
Testimony of Maria Spiropulu, PhD Professor of Physics, California Institute of Technology; Chair, Fermilab Physics Advisory Committee; Before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies On The Department of Energy's High Energy Physics Program Funding for FY 2018
|accessdate=22 July 2020}}
Spiropulu is the author of "Where is Einstein?", the final chapter in My Einstein: Essays by Twenty-four of the World's Leading Thinkers on the Man, His Work, and His Legacy.Brockman, J. (editor), Pantheon 2006, p. 253, {{ISBN|0375423451}}
Spiropulu is the academic great-granddaughter of Enrico Fermi, via her doctoral advisor John Huth and his advisor Owen Chamberlain.
Awards
as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, "for her leadership in experimental high-energy physics, in particular for her pioneering efforts in the experimental search for supersymmetry and extra dimensions." In 2014, she was made a Fellow of the American Physical Society.{{cite web |title=APS Fellow Archive |url=https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/fellowships/archive-all.cfm |access-date=April 22, 2024 |website=aps.org}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{wikiquote}}
- [http://hep.caltech.edu/~smaria/ Professor Spiropulu's Caltech page] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160907015148/http://hep.caltech.edu/~smaria/ |date=2016-09-07 }}
- [http://www.pasadenanow.com/main/physicists-discover-a-new-particle-that-may-be-the-higgs-boson Higgs look-alikes at the LHC]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20130204013834/http://www.nbcnews.com/id/7374458/page/2#.Uve5MnnseVg MSNBC Women on the frontiers of physics]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20131017070003/http://www.cenic.org/p=471/ CENIC Star Performer]
- [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A00E2DA113DF933A0575AC0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon= "SCIENTIST AT WORK -- Maria Spiropulu; Other Dimensions? She's in Pursuit"] - from The New York Times, September 30, 2003
- [https://www.chicagotribune.com/2002/07/11/university-of-chicago-particle-physicist-maria-spiropulu-is/ "University of Chicago particle physicist Maria Spiropulu is a body in motion"] - from The Chicago Tribune, July 11, 2002
- [https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/science/26essay.html Physics of the Universe Summit]
- [http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-02/aaft-iso020602.php In search of extra dimensions]
- [http://edge.org/memberbio/maria_spiropulu Maria Spiropulu's Edge Bio Page]
- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0LtSb5Crjs Maria Spiropulu on CMSExperimentTV]
- [http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1228927?ln=sk CMS Shift Leader, first collisions at world record energy]
- [https://inspirehep.net/author/profile/M.Spiropulu.1 Scientific publications of Maria Spiropulu] on INSPIRE-HEP
- Video of Spiropulu's lecture [http://online.kitp.ucsb.edu/online/plecture/spiropulu/ The Universe in Collisions] at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, Santa Barbara, May 13, 2009
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Category:21st-century Greek physicists
Category:California Institute of Technology faculty
Category:Harvard University alumni
Category:Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Category:People associated with CERN