# Dianna Cowern

Dianna Leilani Cowern (born May 4, 1989) is an American science communicator. She is a YouTuber; she uploads videos to her YouTube channel Physics Girl explaining various physical phenomena. She worked in partnership with the PBS Digital Studios from 2015 until 2020, when she discontinued her partnership. She has collaborations with other YouTube personalities, including fellow science communicator Derek Muller of the channel Veritasium, maker Simone Giertz, and mathematics animator Grant Sanderson of 3Blue1Brown.
She developed long COVID after July 2022, which has almost fully suspended her ability to create new YouTube videos.

## Early life and education

Cowern was born May 4, 1989, and raised on Kauai island in Hawaii. At that time, her father was a tree farmer and her mother ran a bed and breakfast.
Through most of her early education Cowern was fascinated by mathematics. While in high school, she was inspired by Neil deGrasse Tyson and became interested in communicating science. She studied physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), graduating in 2011 with a Bachelor of Science. During her time at MIT she researched dark matter.

## Career

After graduation, Cowern was a research fellow at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian where she researched low-metallicity stars. Cowern began as outreach coordinator at University of California at San Diego's Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences research unit. She started making science videos while working as a mobile app developer at General Electric.
She started her channel Physics Girl on October 21, 2011. In an interview with Grant Sanderson, she said that some of the earlier videos were later deleted from the channel.
Cowern has also participated in various events as a speaker. In 2015, she participated in a conference organized by the U.S. News & World Report.
In February 2017, she gave a talk at Google titled "Becoming YouTube's Physics Girl". In 2018, she gave a keynote at CAST 2018 and at STEMtastic.
In December 2017, she was featured in an interview in APS News. Cowern has been featured in the Huffington Post, Slate, and Scientific American blogs.
On September 25, 2020, Cowern announced on her YouTube channel that she would be ending her five-year partnership with PBS Studios. Her personal YouTube channel however, has gone on, and by mid 2023 she has over 221 million views and over 2.74 million subscribers on the platform. On TikTok, in March 2023, she has over 2.8 million likes and over 176,000 followers.
On June 23, 2022, she announced she would be producing a science-based talk show for Curiosity Stream's Originals called Proof of Concept. The show started streaming in August 2022.

## Awards

In 2014, she won the top video prize from the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University.
In 2018, Cowern won a Webby Award for Best Web Personality. A year later she was listed in Forbes 30 under 30 in the category of education.
As of March 17, 2025, an asteroid has been named after Cowern. This decision was made by the Working Group for Nomenclature of the International Astronomical Union. The asteroid (21943) Diannacowern, previously designated as 1999 VG114, now bears her name in recognition of her contributions to science communication.

## Personal life

A Physics Girl Patreon was established in November 2019.
In May 2022, Cowern announced that she had recently married.
In July 2022, Cowern reported that she had developed long COVID. She was hospitalized in March 2023, as her symptoms similar to myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome continued to worsen, leaving her unable to move. As consistent with the condition, any improvement has been slow. However, on November 20, 2024, Cowern made an update to her channel indicating that while she "still can't get out of bed," she had been improving in her ability to perform certain activities and, "getting back [her] brain." On January 24, 2025, Cowern uploaded a short Youtube video showing that she is now able to stand on her own for short periods of time.