Gibson, Valerie – One of UK’s top scientists

Professor Valerie Gibson  CBE

Val Gibson is the UK Spokesperson for the LHCb experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in CERN, Geneva. Professor Valerie Gibson, Professor of High Energy Physics at the University of Cambridge, has been recognised for championing female talent in science.

Born in Grantham and educated at KGGS, she gained her DPhil in Experimental Particle Physics from Queen’s College Oxford and has previously held a physics fellowship at CERN, a 5 year SERC Advanced Fellowship, the Stokes Senior Research Fellowship at Pembroke College Cambridge and a Leverhulme Trust Royal Society Fellowship.

She has published more than 300 papers on aspects of High Energy Physics.

Her current research interest is the search for new phenomena in quantum loops using particles containing b-quarks, one of the third generation of quarks. These are produced in copious amounts at the LHC and are detected by the LHCb experiment.

In particular, the study of the b-quark system at the LHC will provide very precise measurements of the phenomenum called CP-violation which holds the key to our understanding of the matter-antimatter imbalance in the Universe. Previously I have worked on the muon scattering experiment, EMC, CP violation in the kaon system, NA31, and the OPAL experiment at LEP.

The professor was presented with the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) Leader award at a glittering award ceremony at the Science Museum, by HRH The Princess Royal.

The WISE Leader Award, sponsored by AWE, was won by Valerie for her major leadership role in championing women in science, particularly those pursuing physics as students, researchers and academics. In recent years she has been the driving force behind the Cavendish Laboratory’s success in achieving external recognition of the Department’s work in this area. Val’s hard work, passion and commitment have been key factors in this success.

Val is renowned for her co-discovery of direct CP symmetry violation – an important finding which sheds light on the very existence of matter in our universe. This makes her one of the UK’s leading female scientists, and a superb science communicator with numerous media appearances.

 Val was awarded an OBE in The Queen’s 2021 New Years Honours List “For services to Science, Women in Science and to Public Engagement.” 

She enjoys science communication and is Patron of the Gravity Fields Festival held in honour of Sir Isaac Newton.

She is a champion of Women in Science and spearheaded the Cavendish Laboratory’s success at achieving an Athena SWAN Gold award in 2014. Previously, she has been the School of Physical Sciences Equality & Diversity Champion and Chair of the Institute of Physics Juno Panel. She is currently the University’s Gender Equality Champion (STEMM)