About Fermilab

Lia Merminga

Laboratory Director

Lia Merminga began her tenure as director of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in April 2022. An internationally renowned accelerator physicist, Merminga previously led Fermilab's Proton Improvement Plan II (PIP-II) project, an essential enhancement to Fermilab’s accelerator complex that will provide powerful, high-intensity proton beams, enable the world’s most intense neutrino beam to the flagship Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility and the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (LBNF/DUNE), and drive a broad physics research program.

Merminga has held major scientific leadership roles at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California; TRIUMF in Vancouver, Canada; and the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Virginia. She earned a bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Athens, in Greece and master's degrees in physics and mathematics and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. She is a Fermilab Distinguished Scientist, a fellow of the American Physical Society, and a graduate of the DOE's Oppenheimer Energy Science Leadership Program. She has served on numerous international scientific committees and was one of the authors of the 2014 Particle Physics Project Prioritization Project Panel (P5) plan.