Brookhaven Women in Science (BWIS) Activity

Title: My journeys in Physics and Beyond

Abstract: I came to the United States in 1989 as an international student to pursue graduate studies in physics. More than three decades later, I am still doing physics. But I have done more than just physics. In this presentation, I will talk about my career path as a physicist, an educator, and a leader.

Get to Know: HAIYAN GAO, Associate Laboratory Director for Nuclear and Particle Physics, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and Henry W. Newson Distinguished Professor of Physics at Duke University. She received her B.S. in physics from Tsinghua University in 1988 and her Ph.D. in Physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1994. She was a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign from 1994 to 1996 prior to joining the Argonne National Laboratory as an Assistant Physicist. She was on the faculty at MIT from 1997-2002 before she joined the physics faculty at Duke in 2002 and became a full professor in 2008. Her research interests cover nucleon structure, searches for QCD exotic states, fundamental symmetry studies at low energy, and polarized gas targets. She was the Chair of the Physics Department from July 2011 to December 2014 at Duke University and served as the founding Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at Duke Kunshan University from January 2015 to June 2019. She was named a fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2007. She chaired and co-chaired many workshops and conferences and has served on many committees and advisory panels, including the executive board of the APS, the Executive Committee of the Division of Nuclear Physics (DNP) of APS, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Committee on U.S.-Based Electron Ion Collider Science Assessment, the 2015 Nuclear Science Advisory Committee (NSAC) Long Range Plan (LRP) Writing Committee, and the program advisory committees at Jefferson Lab, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Mainz University. Currently, she chairs the Executive Committee of the DNP. She is a NSAC member, and a member of the 2023 NSAC LRP Writing Committee. She is on the editorial board of the Physics Letters B.