Leah J. Broussard

Leah Jacklyn Broussard
Research Scientist, Physics Division
Oak Ridge National Laboratory 

For Leah Broussard, a senior research scientist in the Physics Division of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), mentorship has been a central component of her research in fundamental neutron physics. By closely supervising the research and professional development of graduate and undergraduate students, she has helped launch their careers, with most continuing to pursue physics or other STEM fields.

Dr. Broussard is a proud Cajun from southwest Louisiana and brings a touch of Mardi Gras to her team, building a welcoming and energetic environment centered on the joy of learning science. Prior to joining ORNL, she earned a B.S. from Tulane University in computer science with majors in math and physics. After finding her passion for physics during her own summer research internship, she went on to earn a Ph.D. in physics from Duke University and became active in outreach and sharing her passion for science with others. She was awarded the State Department’s NeXXt Fellowship in 2013 to mentor female undergraduate students from developing countries in STEM fields. While at ORNL, she co-developed (with the University of Tennessee, Knoxville) the Nuclear Physics in Eastern Tennessee (NPET) internship program to expand the pool of students entering graduate school in nuclear physics and STEM.

Dr. Broussard received the Science-Campaign Seaborg Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2014 for developing a technique using extremely low-energy neutrons to study actinides at DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory. She joined ORNL as a Wigner Fellow in 2016 where she spearheaded a new program of dark matter searches with assistance from several undergraduate interns. She received the DOE Early Career Award in 2019 to study critical systematic effects in two major DOE-supported fundamental neutron physics efforts, the Nab and nEDM@SNS experiments, to measure with unprecedented precision neutron beta decay correlations and the neutron's electric dipole moment, respectively. Within these experiments, she has trained about 20 students through WDTS, NPET, and ORNL programs and university appointments who have contributed to both technical developments and studies of systematic effects.

When Dr. Broussard is not thinking about neutrons, she enjoys hiking, board games, and fantasy football.