Pauline Gagnon was born in Quebec, Canada. After teaching physics for a few years in local colleges, she moved to California, where she completed a PhD in particle physics at University of California in Santa Cruz in 1993. She then started doing research at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics and is now a Senior Research Scientist at Indiana University. Since 2012, Pauline Gagnon has devoted all her time to popular science activities. In her own words, particle physics is too much fun to leave it only to physicists.
