Diana Parno

Diana Parno is the Falco-DeBenedetti Associate Professor of Physics at Carnegie Mellon University's Mellon College of Science, Department of Physics. She earned her Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University in 2011 and has held progressive academic positions including Assistant Professor (2018-2022), Associate Professor (2022-2024), and her current endowed professorship since 2024. Previously, she held research positions at the University of Washington.

Her research focuses on experimental neutrino physics, including:

• Neutrino mass measurements via tritium beta decay (KATRIN experiment)
• Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (COHERENT collaboration)
• Molecular physics of tritium sources (TRIMS experiment)
• Neutron spin structure
• Novel detection methods (Project 8)

Her publications demonstrate consistent focus on neutrino properties, experimental particle physics, and detector development. Recent work emphasizes precision measurements of neutrino mass, CEvNS detection across multiple materials, and background reduction techniques. The research spans nuclear physics, particle detection, and fundamental symmetries.

Awards & Honors:

• DOE Early Career Award (2021) for neutrino detector development
• Falco-DeBenedetti Career Development Chair (endowed professorship)

Research Leadership: She serves as US Spokesperson for KATRIN, Analysis Co-Coordinator for both KATRIN and COHERENT, and leads multiple detector development initiatives. Her group works on simulation, detector design, operations, and data analysis across four experiments.

Student Advising: She has supervised numerous PhD students including recent graduates working on neutrino flux characterization, tritium ion studies, and KATRIN spectral analysis. Current group members include postdoctoral researchers and PhD candidates.