principal investigator

noun

lead researcher on a grant-funded project

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Meanings

nounprincipal investigator (plural principal investigators)

plural principal investigators

  1. scienceslead researcher on a grant-funded project
    1 more example

    „"This is pure exploration; we're going to turn points of light into a planet and a system of moons before your eyes!" said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado. "New Horizons is flying to Pluto — the biggest, brightest and most complex of the dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt. This 21st century encounter is going to be an exploration bonanza unparalleled in anticipation since the storied missions of Voyager in the 1980s."“

    2015 April 14, “NASA's New Horizons Nears Historic Encounter with Pluto”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name) (HTML), NASA/The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, archived from the original on 26 Apr 2015

Synonyms & antonyms

nounthe scientist in charge of an experiment or research project

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Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.

Cite this entry
APA

principal investigator. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/principal%20investigator

MLA

“principal investigator.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/principal%20investigator. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “principal investigator,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/principal%20investigator.

Source: principal investigator on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.