C11: News

“For co-design, development and deployment of novel machine learning techniques to address complex elementary particle physics challenges with focus on ultra-fast real-time data analysis on hardware triggers and for model agnostic searches for beyond the Standard Model physics signals at the Large Hadron Collider”.

Jennifer Ngadiuba has been a Wilson Fellow at Fermilab since 2021, focusing on the search for new physics in collider data and enhancing the capabilities of collider experiments for such searches. She graduated from the University of Zurich, where she conducted research at new center-of-mass energies, searching for new heavy resonances decaying to dibosons at the CMS experiment, and validating and utilizing new jet substructure techniques.

Ngadiuba was a research fellow at CERN and later at Caltech, where she continued to develop experimental techniques for diboson resonances and began exploring the potential of Deep Learning, focusing on anomaly detection and fast inference on FPGAs for the CMS trigger system. Since joining Fermilab, she has integrated her work on anomaly detection and AI in trigger systems to identify potential new physics collisions in real-time with the CMS detector.

Ngadiuba’s innovative work in AI applications to CMS physics earned her the U.S. Department of Energy’s AI4HEP award in 2023. In the same year, she was also named a fellow of the AI2050 initiative by Schmidt Sciences, recognizing her significant contributions to the field.

“For the invention of novel jet substructure observables which have had a direct impact on the collider physics program, and for developing new effective field theory techniques to enable high precision calculations, including in multi-prong kinematics and in subleading soft and collinear limits.”

Ian Moult is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at Yale University. His research focuses on developing new techniques in quantum field theory for improving our understanding of high-energy particle physics experiments. He graduated from the University of British Columbia, and received his Ph.D from MIT. He was then a postdoctoral fellow at LBL/UC Berkeley and SLAC, before joining the Yale Physics Department. Ian was awarded the J. J. and Noriko Sakurai Dissertation Award in Theoretical Particle Physics from the American Physical Society, and the the Wu-Ki Tung Award for Early-Career Research on Quantum Chromodynamics.

“For conducting and leading new experiments to study nuclear-physics effects that take place in neutrino interactions and implements them in simulation. These efforts are crucial for fully utilizing the potential of current and future high-statistics neutrino experiments around the world.”

“For substantial and impactful contributions to the understanding of black holes and quantum gravity, specifically related to the information paradox and its connection to quantum information theory and quantum error correction.”

“For his pioneering work in the development of fast crystal sensors for the precision timing of charged particles”

“For groundbreaking theoretical contributions to the search for dark matter, in particular the development of innovative techniques to search for axion dark matter, and to separate dark matter signals from astrophysical backgrounds.”

Dr. Benjamin Safdi is an assistant professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His research investigates the microscopic nature of dark matter, which is currently unknown. He has helped establish pathways towards potentially discovering some of the most well-motivated dark matter candidates, such as axion dark matter, with novel laboratory experiments and astrophysical probes. In addition, he has developed data-analysis techniques that have helped better understand how to search for signatures of dark matter in complicated astrophysical datasets. Before arriving at Michigan, Dr. Safdi was a Pappalardo Fellow in Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder, a Master of Advanced Study from Cambridge University, as a Churchill Scholar, and his PhD from Princeton University.

“For the discovery and exploration of new physical and mathematical principles underlying the dynamics of particle scattering amplitudes in a wide range of theories.”

Jaroslav Trnka is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Physics, University of California, Davis. He graduated from the Charles University in Prague in 2008, and received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2013. He was a David Ellen Lee Postdoctoral Fellow at the California Institute of Technology before moving to UC Davis as a founding member of the Center for Quantum Mathematics and Physics (QMAP). His research has been focused on the development of new methods for calculating scattering amplitudes of elementary particles.

“For her broad and creative contributions as well as leadership in performance and physics analysis in the ATLAS experiment and beyond, culminating in her strong role in the searches and initial measurements of Higgs boson interactions with quarks.”

Heather Gray received her undergraduate education at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. She then obtained her PhD from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena in the USA in 2011. She worked as a fellow and a research staff scientist at CERN in Switzerland until 2017. She is currently a Divisional Fellow in the physics division at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in the USA. She has been a member of the ATLAS collaboration since 2006. Her research program includes studying the coupling of the Higgs to fermions, track reconstruction algorithms and performance, detector simulation and silicon pixel detectors.

“For developing high precision Monte Carlo simulations of events at hadronic colliders”

Stefan Hoeche received his Diplom in 2004 from the Dresden University of Technology, and his Ph.D. in 2008 from Durham University. After a postdoctoral appointment at the University of Zurich, he moved to SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory where he is now a Staff Scientist. His professional career has been devoted to providing more accurate simulations of the complex scattering events that take place when two high energy hadrons collide, such as at the Large Hadron Collider. Such simulations are essential to experimentalists for precision measurements of Higgs boson couplings as well as in the search for new physics. He has produced simulations that are accurate to next-to-next-to-leading order in the strong coupling constant for benchmark processes such as Higgs production and W and Z boson production. He has also shown how to construct simulations that are accurate to next-to-leading order, even for events with additional jets within the same sample. He recently developed a novel parton shower formalism which has significantly improved behavior compared with previous ones. His work sets the standards for the precision calculations and simulation tools used at the LHC today.

“For his original contributions to the physics of neutrinos, and in particular, to the discovery of the non-zero neutrino mixing angle q₁₃”

Dr. Liangjian Wen is an Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing. He graduated from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 2005, and received his Ph.D. from IHEP in 2010.  He has worked on the measurement of θ₁₃ at Daya Bay experiment, on the search of neutrino-less double beta decays (0nbb) with EXO-200/nEXO, and on the determination of the neutrino mass hierarchy (MH) with JUNO.

Dr. Liangjian Wen made major contributions to the discovery of non-zero θ₁₃ at the Daya Bay reactor neutrino experiment, spanning from the design, construction and commissioning of the detector to the software and data analysis. In particular, he developed a new energy calibration scheme, an energy response model, and novel methods to reject backgrounds and determine systematics, which led to the rapid and precise measurement of θ₁₃ .