Ani Aprahamian

Ani Aprahamian is a Frank M. Freimann Chair professor of Physics at the University of Notre Dame.  She received her Ph.D. in Nuclear Chemistry from Clark University in 1986 and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Nuclear Chemistry Division at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory prior to joining the faculty of the Physics Department and the Nuclear Science Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame in 1989. She is an experimental nuclear scientist interested in the origins of the heavy elements in the universe and the evolution of structure in neutron rich nuclei. Over 50% of the heavy elements are believed to be created in the rapid neutron process (r-process). The site of this process has remained as one of the challenging open questions in all of science today. Some questions were resolved with the observation of the two neutron star mergers but very important questions remain. The question was one of eleven greatest unanswered questions of Astrophysics, Astronomy, and Physics.  Outside of her research, she has strong interests in the applications of nuclear science to energy and medicine.

The recent thrust of her work has been towards using nuclear properties to constrain the site of the r-process from various proposed astrophysical scenarios. The topic is crucial for setting new priority agendas for measurements of nuclear properties far from stability at new accelerator facilities that have just been built or soon coming on-line. These include the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University, RIKEN in Japan, CERN in Switzerland, GSI-FAIR in Germany, and GANIL in France.  She has led sensitivity studies of nuclear masses, beta-decay rates, beta-delayed neutron emission probabilities, and neutron capture rates in various astrophysical conditions. She has published numerous works on this topic and the combined results have been published as a review article, Progress in Particle and Nuclear Physics 86, 86-126 (2016).

In her role as the director of the A. Alikhanyan National Laboratory of Armenia, Professor Aprahamian is committed to the commissioning of a newly purchased cyclotron and implementation of a research program in fundamental and applied nuclear science. It is anticipated that the commissioning of the cyclotron and the realization of a fundamental nuclear science and a radioisotope capability for nuclear medicine and other applications would have a profound impact on the scientific and technical capabilities of Armenia and on its students, the future technical leaders.  In addition to providing students with hands-on experience with scientific instruments and technologies, the cyclotron would engage technically trained individuals in developing and maintaining the accelerator and its instruments for fundamental and applied environmental radiation monitoring and providing a source of radioisotopes for nuclear medicine diagnostics and treatment in Armenia.  The country of Armenia is shown the very highest mortalities from six major types of cancers according to the World Health Organization due to the lack of early medical diagnosis.

Throughout her career Professor Aprahamian has been dedicated to serving the nuclear science community in the U.S. and the world. She served as a program director at the National Science Foundation, Mathematical and Physical Sciences Division in Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics, and Nuclear Physics. She has been a member of the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee (NSAC) and a member of several NSAC Long Range Plan Committees that advise both the National Science Foundation and Department of Energy Office of Science on matters related to Nuclear Physics. She was co-chair of the NSAC subcommittee on Isotopes and lead author of the reports Isotopes for the Nation’s Future and Compelling Research Opportunities using Isotopes. She served as the American Physical Society’s Division of Nuclear Physics chair, and as a member of the APS Policy Committee. She is the elected Chair of International Union of Pure and Applied Physics Commission-12 (Nuclear Physics) and elected member of IUPAP C-10 (Astro-Particle Physics: APpic).

Professor Aprahamian has also assumed leadership positions in National Academy of Science (NAS) reviews as co-chair of both the Science of the Electron Ion Collider (2018) and Nuclear Physics: Exploring the Heart of Matter (the decadal review of nuclear physics NP2010 released in 2012). She also served on the NAS committee report Midsize Facilities: The Infrastructure for Materials Research.

Professor Aprahamian is regularly asked to serve as a reviewer of science and scientific

priorities in the USA and around the world.  In the US her recent service includes Chair of the FRIB Science Advisory Committee, member on the Discovery Science Technical Review Committee of the National Ignition Facility (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), chair of the reviews of radiochemistry proposals for National Nuclear Security Administration Centers of Excellence, member of the External Review Committee in the Physical and Life Sciences at LLNL (including recent review of the Nuclear and Chemical Sciences Division), and member of the Board of Directors for South Dakota Science and Technology Authority (Sanford Underground Laboratory).  She has chaired the Scientific Council of GANIL (Caen, France), was appointed to the Institute of Physics panel to evaluate the health of physics research in the UK, was appointed by the Prime Minister of Armenia to serve on the Science Advisory Board to the Alikhanyan National Laboratory and was elected as an advisor to the Mexican Physical Society.

Professor Aprahamian is a fellow of the AAAS and American Physical Society.  She is an elected foreign member of the science academy of the republic of Armenia. She is a member of Sigma Pi Sigma, the national physics honor society, and the American Chemical Society’s Division of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology. She is a frequent reviewer of Physics Departments across the USA in evaluating academic excellence, diversity of physics disciplines, and the climate for women. In 2008 she received the National Science Foundation Director’s Award for Collaborative Integration and in 2006 was recognized as one of the three Most Influential Women in Science and Scientific Publishing Annual Meeting of the Council of Science Editors.

She has mentored 19 graduate students and 10 postdoctoral fellows.  To date, she has published over 180 peer-reviewed papers and given over 200 invited addresses at national and international conferences.