Dr. Jennet Dickinson 2010
At St. Catherine's, Jennet collected numerous honors including the June Cornwall Sophomore Scholar award, Marian West Stocker Latin Award, Cum Laude, both Math and Music Awards as a senior, and she served as her class’ June Scholar. She credits her 2-year minimester astronomy project at St. Catherine’s and Upper School teacher Harriet Vincent for sparking her interest in research.
At St. Catherine's, Jennet collected numerous honors including the June Cornwall Sophomore Scholar award, Marian West Stocker Latin Award, Cum Laude, both Math and Music Awards as a senior, and she served as her class’ June Scholar. She credits her 2-year minimester astronomy project at St. Catherine’s and Upper School teacher Harriet Vincent for sparking her interest in research.
In college, Jennet pursued a major in physics at Columbia University. She became a research assistant at Columbia's Nevis Labs and mastered three computer languages essential for her work. She also demonstrated leadership as president of Columbia's Physics Club, actively recruiting women members.
As a graduate student at UC Berkeley, Jennet joined the international ATLAS experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. Her team observed "the first direct window into the relationship between Higgs Boson (the most recently discovered fundamental particle) and the top-quark in just a few years, overcoming challenges with tight timelines and new software implementation.
After her graduate work, she spent four years as a postdoctoral researcher at Fermilab (short for Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory) where she worked on silicon tracking detectors for particle physics experiments. This past fall, Jennet joined the faculty at Cornell University as an Assistant Professor of Physics with a focus on experimental particle physics.
For her remarkable achievements, leadership, and contributions to the field of physics, it is with great pride that we honor Jennet Dickinson with the 2025 Distinguished Young Alumna Award.
Located in the heart of Richmond, Virginia, St. Catherine’s School is a private, all-girls pre-K, kindergarten, elementary, middle and high school. We provide a well-rounded educational experience for girls from communities across Richmond, Chesterfield, Henrico and all of central Virginia. St.Catherine’s all-girls educational experience is rooted in more than a century of history and tradition. From our revolutionary past to our dynamic present, St. Catherine’s has always focused on preparing students for a boundless future.
