Marcela Carena

Prof. Marcela Carena is the Executive Director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. She is an award-winning Distinguished Scientist of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), and she is jointly appointed as a particle physicist at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) and a physics professor at the University of Chicago, where she has been a member of both the Enrico Fermi Institute and the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics. She was formerly the Director of the Theory Division at Fermilab.

Prof. Carena is a renowned particle physicist who has advanced understanding of fundamental mysteries of science related to sourcing the mass of the fundamental particles in nature, the origin of matter in the universe, and the nature of dark matter. She has been a leader in exploring radical concepts such as electroweak baryogenesis, supersymmetry, and warped extra dimensions, particularly in showing how these ideas can be tested in terrestrial experiments or cosmic observatories. Her most recent research program explores particle physics and quantum information to tackle problems of quantum theory in the early universe.

She has been a member of several international scientific advisory panels around the world, including the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada; the Serrapilheira Institute and the International Centre for Theoretical Physics South American Institute for Fundamental Research, in Brazil; and the Mainz Institute for Theoretical Physics and the DESY Physics Research Council, in Germany. She is currently a member of the US National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s committee setting a vision for the field of elementary particle physics for the coming decades. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the Academia Nacional de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicas y Naturales of Argentina.

In the international arena, Prof. Carena worked closely with the US DOE and the US State Department to promote collaboration between Fermilab and international partners, developing agreements with research councils and institutions in Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Mexico, Peru, and Spain. She continues to be actively involved in efforts in Latin America and other countries to strengthen scientific collaborations at a global scale and open new opportunities for junior scientists.

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