Profile

I work for University of Bristol as a Postdoctoral Researcher in particle physics but I live in Geneva Switzerland since my work is at CERN. My work is very technical and always indoors, so on my spare time I prefer to be in nature whenever the weather is good. Geneva is right in the middle of several mountains, so it’s very easy to head outside for an adventure! When the weather is bad, or I’m feeling lazy, I enjoy knitting, baking, and tending my balcony garden where I’m growing fruit and vegetables. You don’t need a full garden to grow your own food!

Every 25 nanoseconds, the LHC will smash particles together to create new particles. We are not able to save the data from every single collision inside the CMS detector. Instead, we have a trigger system that picks only the most interesting events to save. One of the many inputs to the trigger is particle tracks. From the tracks, you are able to determine where the collisions happened and how much energy the new particles have. I am working on an algorithm that takes raw data and finds these tracks inside the CMS sub-detector called “Tracker”.

Sometimes I also work in the lab testing super fast electronics that send data through optical cables. There is a lot of data that has to be sent from the CMS detector to the systems that process the collision events. We need to make sure that the data is not lost or changed when we send it between systems. By testing the electronics and optical parts, we can find the best settings to avoid any loss of data.

There are many searches for new particles using the data from CMS. There are different theories that predict different particles. I am trying to find proof of a theory called “Supersymmetry”. Supersymmetry says that every particle that we have already found should have a partner particle. We have not found any partner particles yet, but maybe soon…

I’m not very productive in the morning. I wake up quite late (between 8 and 9), and I like to relax, have a slow breakfast, and focus on my well-being. I usually eat porridge for breakfast, but if there is leftover cake from a previous baking session, I might have that instead… I also try to do some kind of exercise in the morning, as I know that I will be too tired to do it after work. If there is still time before lunch, I will start working from home, before cycling over to CERN to have lunch with friends and colleagues. Much of my work can be done from home as there is a lot of programming involved, but in the office I have a proper desk setup with big screens etc. so I prefer to work from the office in the afternoon. Also, sometimes I need to be in the lab and connect various cables. Whenever I start to feel hungry, I cycle back home and have dinner. Depending on how much I managed to accomplish in the morning, I might or might not continue to work for an hour or two after dinner.