She’s been dubbed the female ‘Einstein’ so it comes as no surprise that Greek physicist Asimina Arvanitaki won the $100,000 2017 'New Horizons in Physics' Prize, which was presented to her at NASA's Ames Research Centre in California.
The 'New Horizons in Physics' Prize is awarded to promising junior researchers who have already produced important work and was given to Arvanitaki "for pioneering a wide range of new experimental probes of fundamental physics."
Arvanitaki has been recognised for her ground-breaking work bridging theory and experimental approaches in particle physics, through small-scale experiments that she designed herself, focusing on supersymmetry, dark matter and additional dimensions.
Arvanitaki graduated from Athens University and received her post-graduate degree from Stanford University in California. In 2014 she joined the Perimeter Institute and since 2016 she took over the Stavros Niarchos Foundation "Aristarchus" Chair in Theoretical Physics at the Perimeter Institute, funded with eight million dollars by the SNF.