Women in Physics Celebrating International Women’s Day

To mark International Women’s Day and Women's History Month 2026, the Academy brings together outstanding astrophysicists for a wide-ranging conversation.

Speakers:
Elena Aprile (Centennial Professor of Physics; Director of the Italian Academy, Columbia University)
Janna Levin (Claire Tow Professor of Physics & Astronomy, Barnard College)
Angela V. Olinto (Professor of Astronomy and of Physics; Provost of Columbia University)

This is part of the Italian Academy program .

ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS

Elena Aprile, Columbia's Centennial Professor of Physics, has served as the Director of the Italian Academy since July 1, 2025. An experimental particle physicist, she has been at Columbia University since 1986 and is the founder and spokesperson of the XENON Dark Matter Experiment, a world-leading project to discover the origin of the elusive dark matter in the universe. She received her degrees from the University of Naples, Italy, and the University of Geneva, Switzerland. She was a postdoctoral scholar at Harvard University before joining the faculty at Columbia. Professor Aprile is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. She is the 2019 recipient of the Lancelot Berkeley Prize of the American Astronomical Society and the 2021 recipient of the Enrico Fermi Prize of the Italian Physical Society.

Janna Levin joined the Barnard faculty in January 2004. Professor Levin's research focuses on theories of the early universe, chaos, and black holes. She is also interested in the topology of the universe and the question of whether or not the universe is infinite. Other research topics include the cosmology of extra dimensions and string cosmology.
Professor Levin has conducted research at the Center for Particle Astrophysics (CfPA) at University of California, Berkeley, as well as the department of applied mathematics and theoretical physics, Cambridge University, U.K.
While in England, she also had an appointment as the first scientist-in-residence at the Ruskin School of Fine Art and Drawing at Oxford, supported by an award from the National Endowment for Science, Technology, and Arts (NESTA).
Professor Levin writes and publishes for both scientific and general audiences. Her novel, A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, won the PEN/Bingham Fellowship for Writers, an award which "honors an exceptionally talented fiction writer whose debut work ... represents distinguished literary achievement..." and the Mary Shelley Award for Outstanding Fictional Work. It was a runner-up for the PEN/Hemingway Award for "a distinguished book of first fiction."
She is also the author of three popular science books, How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space, Black Hole Blues, and most recently, Black Hole Survival Guide.

Angela V. Olinto is Professor of Astronomy and of Physics and Provost of the University.
As Provost, Olinto is Columbia’s chief academic officer, and works to advance the academic distinction, intellectual richness, creativity, and integrity of the many facets of Columbia University. She supports the President in the development and implementation of the University’s strategic academic priorities, and leads the deans and faculty in their pursuit of research and teaching excellence.
Olinto directs the development and implementation of Columbia's academic plans and policies, and supervises the work of its schools, departments, institutes, and research centers, with the support of a dedicated team of Vice Provosts and staff of the Office of the Provost. She manages faculty appointments and the tenure review process, supports faculty recruitment and retention as the University collectively aspires to diversify talent and expand excellence, seeds new education initiatives, and heads efforts to lower barriers to cross-disciplinary initiatives that expand the individual and collective impact of our faculty and students. In addition to the Office of the Provost, she oversees a number of centers and institutes, offices, and other academic resources, including the Data Science Institute, University Libraries, the Italian Academy, and the Columbia University Press.
Prior to joining Columbia in March 2024, Olinto was Dean of the Division of the Physical Sciences and the Albert A. Michelson Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, and the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago. She previously served as Chair of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics there from 2003 to 2006 and again from 2012 to 2017.
As a scholar, Olinto is best known for her contributions to the study of the structure of neutron stars, primordial inflationary theory, cosmic magnetic fields, the nature of the dark matter, and the origin of the highest energy cosmic rays, gamma-rays, and neutrinos. She is the Principal Investigator of the POEMMA (Probe Of Extreme Multi-Messenger Astrophysics) space mission and the EUSO (Extreme Universe Space Observatory) on a super pressure balloon (SPB) missions, and was a member of the Pierre Auger Observatory, all designed to discover the origin of the highest energy cosmic particles, their sources, and their interactions.
Olinto is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. She is a fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She received the Brazilian Order of Rio Branco medal at the rank of Commander in 2023, a Chaire d’Excellence Award of the French Agence Nationale de Recherche in 2006, the Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2011, and the Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching in 2015 at the University of Chicago. She received a BS in Physics from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1981, and PhD in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1987

Doors open at 4:30pm. Registration does not guarantee a seat; registrants are seated first-come, first served.
This event is in-person only.

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