| Mary R. M. Bishai | |
| Birth Place: | Nigeria |
| Workplaces: | Brookhaven National Laboratory Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory |
| Alma Mater: | University of Colorado Boulder Purdue University |
| Thesis Title: | A study of semileptonic and 2-body decays of charm strange baryons, a search for CP violation in Xi hyperon decays and a study of surface-treated planar microstrip gas chambers |
| Thesis Url: | https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/dissertations/AAI9951916/ |
| Thesis Year: | 1999 |
| Doctoral Advisor: | Ephraim Fischbach |
Mary R. M. Bishai (born 1970) is an American physicist who is a Distinguished Scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. In 2023, she was elected spokesperson of Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, and was made responsible for the 1,400 person collaboration. She was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2015.
Bishai was born to a family of engineers. Her father had a PhD in electrical engineering and her grandfather was a science teacher.[1] She grew up in Nigeria and Egypt and is of Egyptian descent.[2] In 1985, she read a National Geographic magazine about particle physics experiments taking place at CERN, and decided that was what she wanted to work on. She was an undergraduate student in physics at University of Colorado Boulder, then moved to Purdue University for graduate studies,[3] where she worked on the CLEO experiment at Cornell University. She worked on parity violations in the decays of charm-strange baryons. She was awarded the Purdue University George W. Tautfest Award, an award that honors outstanding physics graduate students.[4]
In 1998, Bishai joined Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory as a research associate, where she was involved with Tevatron.[5] She worked on quantum chromodynamics.[6]
Bishai joined Brookhaven National Laboratory in 2004. She was hired to work on the MINOS experiment, a long baseline neutrino project.[7] Her recommendations enabled the CD-0 decision from the United States Department of Energy that enabled the Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment. She was part of the team who measured the J/psi meson cross sections at the Collider Detector at Fermilab.[8]
In 2015, Bishai was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society "For her contributions to flavour physics,".
Bishai was elected the spokesperson of Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment in 2023. As spokesperson, Bishai is responsible for leading the 1,400 member neutrino collaboration.[9] DUNE will send the most intense neutrino beam in the world from Fermilab to the Sanford Underground Research Facility.