Haiyan Gao (Chinese: 高海燕) is a Chinese-American nuclear physicist whose research concerns the structure of nucleons, quantum chromodynamics, and low-energy fundamental symmetries and symmetry violations,[1][2] and has included accurate measurements of the size of protons.
Beyond her research in physics, she is also known as having a "keen interest in promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in the sciences".
[1] Gao grew up in Shanghai, and was encouraged to go into science by her father and by a female high school physics teacher.
[6] She became a researcher at Argonne National Laboratory and then a faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology[2] before moving to Duke University as an associate professor in 2002.
[7] Gao was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2007, after a nomination from the APS Division of Nuclear Physics, "for her extensive contributions to understanding the quark/hadron transition region and for determinations of the nucleon electromagnetic form factors".