Mary Bishai

Mary R. M. Bishai (born 1970) is an American physicist who is a Distinguished Scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. In 2023, she was elected co-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 2014.

Bishai was born to a family of engineers. Her father had a PhD in electrical engineering and her grandfather was a science teacher.^[2] She grew up in Nigeria and Egypt and is of Egyptian descent.^[2][3] 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.^[2] She was an undergraduate student in physics at University of Colorado Boulder, then moved to Purdue University for graduate studies,^[1] where she worked on the CLEO experiment at Cornell University.^[2] She worked on parity violations in the decays of charm-strange baryons.^[2] 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.^[5][7] Her recommendations enabled the CD-0 decision from the United States Department of Energy (DOE) 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] Her role as Project Scientist for the LBNE from 2012 to 2015 contributed to the formation of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) in 2015.^[5]

Dr. Bishai also contributes as a mentor, committed to guiding young scientists in the field. This includes mentoring over 15 undergraduate students through the DOE-funded Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship program and 5 high school student interns through the High School Research Program, both hosted by Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL).^[5][9] Additionally, she has mentored students who visited Brookhaven as part of the African School of Physics program.^[5]

• F. P. An; J. Z. Bai; A. B. Balantekin; et al. (April 2012). "Observation of Electron-Antineutrino Disappearance at Daya Bay". Physical Review Letters. 108 (17): 171803. arXiv:1203.1669. doi:10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.108.171803. ISSN 0031-9007. PMID 22680853. Wikidata Q27448668.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: article number as page number (link)
• Phil Adamson; D J Auty; D S Ayres; et al. (27 October 2011). "Improved search for Muon-neutrino to electron-neutrino oscillations in MINOS". Physical Review Letters. 107 (18): 181802. arXiv:1108.0015. doi:10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.107.181802. ISSN 0031-9007. PMID 22107623. Wikidata Q58379444.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: article number as page number (link)
• M. S. Alam; I. J. Kim; Z. Ling; et al. (10 April 1995). "First measurement of the rate for the inclusive radiative penguin decay b-->s gamma". Physical Review Letters. 74 (15): 2885–2889. doi:10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.74.2885. ISSN 0031-9007. PMID 10058050. Wikidata Q27349109.

In 2014, Bishai was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society “for her contributions to flavour physics.”^[6][10]

Bishai served as the co-spokesperson of Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) from January 2023 through March of 2025. As co-spokesperson, Bishai was responsible for leading the 1,400 member neutrino collaboration.^[11] DUNE will send the most intense neutrino beam in the world from Fermilab to the Sanford Underground Research Facility.^[7][12]