Patricia Rankin is a Professor of Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She did both her undergraduate and her graduate work at Imperial College, London. As an undergraduate student, she was awarded the “Governor’s Prize” for graduating first in her year in Physics. In 1988 she became an Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Colorado and the only women on the Physics faculty at the time. She was a recipient of both a Sloan Fellowship and a Department of Energy Outstanding Junior Investigator Award. She was awarded tenure in 1995. She then chose to work for two years in Washington D.C. as a program officer for particle physics at the National Science Foundation. Returning to Boulder she was promoted to Full Professor. Her research interests have shifted over the years from experimental particle physics (including precision measurements as tests of the Standard Model and studies of heavy quark physics with a focus on understanding the symmetries of nature) to ways to address the lack of representation of women in STEM fields and especially in leadership positions. She was PI of the CU Boulder NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Grant and has studied how participation in networks affects success in academia. She is also interested in effective decision making and how best to spread scientific literacy.
