Maria Piarulli is mainly focused on ab-initio studies of structure and reactions of atomic nuclei and nucleonic matter equation of state.
Atomic nuclei are complex quantum many-body system displaying interesting properties, which include the emergent phenomena of shell structure, pairing and superfluidity, deformation, and strong clustering. Their structure and scattering by electrons and neutrinos are at the forefront of the nuclear physics and high-energy physics in both domestic and worldwide research programs. Leading experiments at several major facilities probe the complex interactions that govern the atomic nucleus and the fundamental properties of neutrinos as governed by the electroweak interaction.
Our research activity is mainly focused on the development of nuclear interactions and electroweak currents based on chiral effective field theory approaches and on their implementation in Quantum Monte Carlo methods to study the structure and reactions of atomic nuclei and the equation of state of infinite nuclear matter.
Piarulli completed her undergraduate and master degrees in physics from University of Pisa in Italy. She obtained her doctorate from Old Dominion University under the supervision of Prof. Rocco Schiavilla. Prior to her arrival at Washington University, Piarulli was a postdoctoral fellow in the theory group at Argonne National Laboratory.
