Physics Research
Themes
My research is motivated by understanding the fundamental particles that make up our universe. I use the ATLAS experiment to search for candidate dark matter particles through supersymmetry, and have proposed the BREAD experiment to complimentary use novel quantum technologies to search for axion dark matter. I have performed radiation hardness tests on silicon detectors, deconstructed experiments by hand to prepare for upgrades, operated an adiabatic refrigerator for testing quantum sensors and run operations tests on newly developed hardware systems within experimental run conditions.
ATLAS Experiment
ATLAS general physics detector at the Large Hadron Collider, Geneva Switzerland
BREAD Experiment
Broadband Reflector Experiment for Axion Detection at Fermilab, in Batavia Illinois, USA
KOTO Experiment
K0-at-Tokai Experiment, searching for an ultra rare decay of the long lived neutral kaon, at the J-Parc Laboratory, in Tokai, Japan
I have spent the past six years working on various physics experiments, working to understand the fundamental particles that make up our universe. These experiments have sent me across the globe to work with experiments varying greatly in size and direct goal.
My complete CV, detailing my various research activities, can be accessed here.
Most recently I have worked on the ATLAS Experiment where I have developed a jet trigger efficiency monitoring system, that is updated after nightly runs of the detector, to demonstrate performance of the data filtering algorithms. This system depends on the intricate Athena framework, specific to the ATLAS Experiment. My system inside of this framework uses C++, Python, and ROOT to generate histograms that are published to a monitoring web display system.
WIth the ATLAS Experiment I also run commissioning tests to evaluate the performance of the newly developed trigger hardware system called gFEX, and analyze the data collected by this system as compared to simulations of the firmware algorithms. This tests are run mostly in Python, determining if the hardware algorithms output the expected results.
I also am a part of an analysis team that is using data collected from the ATLAS experiment to look for the supersymmetric partner of the axion, called the axino. This analysis framework is in early stages, currently relying on Python to filter through physics events and simulation to determine what phase space has distinct behvaior between the expected background and signal processes.