Anna Grassellino (born 1981) is an Italian and American physicist, Senior Scientist and, since 2020, Director of the SQMS (Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems) Center at Fermilab. In 2017 she was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers by Barack Obama. Early life and education Grassellino is from the Southern city of Marsala in Italy. She attended the Scientific High School of Marsala graduating cum laude. She studied electronic engineering at the University of Pisa, graduating in 2005 with a thesis in microelectronics. She spent the summer of 2004 as an intern at Fermilab and met Nigel Lockyer. She joined the University of Pennsylvania for her graduate studies. For her doctorate, she specialized in superconducting radio frequency technology and applied physics working with Nigel Lockyer. In 2009 she was awarded the top young researcher poster prize at the International Particle Accelerator Conference. She worked in Philadelphia and at TRIUMF in Vancouver, and eventually graduated in 2011. Research and career Grassellino was appointed as a postdoctoral researcher at Fermilab in 2012. She was then appointed Scientist in 2015 and Senior Scientist in 2018. Grassellino has covered leadership roles at Fermilab starting from group leader in 2014 to Deputy Division Head in 2016 and Deputy Chief Technology Officer in 2019. Since 2020 she is the Director of the SQMS (Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems) Center at Fermilab. She also currently manages an Associate Professor position at Northwestern University where she is Co-Director of CAPST (Center for Applied Physics and Superconducting Technology). She is known for her pioneering work in superconducting radio frequency cavities for next generation particle accelerators. As a postdoc, Grassellino experimented with introducing a small amount of nitrogen into the inner surface of the cavities, which are made of niobium and surface treated using electropolishing. She and her group noticed that residual nitrogen remaining in the cavity systematically improved the RF superconductivity response. By baking the niobium SRF cavities at high temperatures in the presence of nitrogen, the Q factors more than tripled; dramatically reducing the cryogenic costs of the large accelerator facilities. She made the discovery of nitrogen doping by accident, hoping to create niobium nitride but instead found with her FNAL group - via material and surface science studies - that the real effect was due to nitrogen as interstitial. Superconducting radio frequency cavities generate high energy with high current and expel magnetic flux, which