Runner-Up: Fabiola Gianotti, the Discoverer

By Jeffrey Kluger – Dec. 19, 2012 LEVON BISS FOR TIME  Follow @TIME The LHC, where Gianotti now works and the Higgs discovery was made, straddles the French-Swiss border and is the foremost collider in the world, with a 16.7-mile (27 km) circumference. The machine and its accomplishments are the result of a quarter-century of effort by…