About
I’m an experimental nuclear and particle physicist at the University of Minnesota. I research neutrinos and muons on Fermilab experiments that test the Standard Model of particle physics. I have expertise in particle beams and detectors, high-performance computing, and data science. I also do work in science communication, STEM education and mentorship, and I was recently an assistant professor at St. Olaf and Carleton Colleges. I hold a Ph.D and M.S. in physics from the University of Pittsburgh and a B.A. in physics and philosophy from Bowdoin College.
Research Summary
My research activities span the field of experimental particle physics: I both build and operate particle detectors, and I model and analyze the images of particle collisions that they collect.
The detectors my colleagues and I build are incredible projects – completely custom-built, gymnasium-sized digital cameras that take pictures of particles and regularly set new human limits on energy, engineering, and technology. Our detectors can collect trillions of particle images. To extract the signals within, I also work in the areas of statistics, data science, computer science, machine learning, and high-performance computing.
My scientific focus is the Standard Model of particle physics – an incredibly successful theory describing fundamental particles and the interactions between them. The Standard model seems to only make correct predictions, but can’t explain some conspicuous phenomena like dark matter and gravity. According to the Standard Model, there are 17 fundamental particles. I study two of them: neutrinos and muons.
Neutrinos are extremely numerous, ghostly particles with a trace amount of mass. They’re very hard to detect, and we still have a lot to learn about them. The big questions in neutrino physics are: what exactly is the neutrino’s mass? How do neutrinos behave differently from their antiparticles? And might they even be their own antiparticles? Answering these questions will help us better understand the shortcomings of the Standard Model and help answer: why this universe?
Muons are the heavier sister particles to electrons. The Mu2e experiment at Fermilab will search for a type of muon decay that is not allowed by the Standard Model, but that does happen in hypothetical Beyond Standard Model theories. The outcome of the Mu2e experiment will either be to wipe out whole categories of theories or pave the road to a new model.
I focus specifically on neutrino beam technology and nuclear neutrino interactions. I work on several Fermilab experiments, in particular the MINERvA experiment, and I’ve also studied neutrino beams at CERN. On the Mu2e experiment I helped build the electron tracking detector, and now I develop machine learning-based calibration and analysis techniques. I also designed an open science particle physics analysis software toolkit as a member of the MINERvA collaboration.
Teaching, Communication, and Community
I also do work in physics education and community, with emphasis on a few areas where I found I can most effectively contribute to advancing DEAI in STEM: participation in advocacy groups, evidence-based teaching strategies, individual research mentorship, public science outreach, and open science.
In 2022 and 2023, I was Adjunct Assistant Professor at St. Olaf College teaching the advanced lab course, and Visiting Assistant Professor at Carleton College, where I taught the intro physics survey course and researched neutrino detectors with a summer student. At Minnesota, I’m a member of the Climate and Diversity Committee, I have many graduate and undergraduate student research partnerships, and this semester, I’m assisting/co-teaching Introduction to Nuclear and Particle Physics.
Other Interests
I play lots of different sports like ice hockey, cross country skiing, rock climbing, and I captained my college rugby team. I’m a long time Lindy Hop swing dancer, community organizer, instructor, DJ, and competitor. I love to express myself and connect with others through dance. I enjoy strategy games, and analyzing games with statistics. I’m currently solving the collaborative card game, Hanabi, using reinforcement machine learning. My second academic love is the history and philosophy of physics – in particular the questions of how scientific ideas develop and how they inform pedagogy.
