LHC Physics Center

What I will be working on:

I will be working on the measurement of the Higgs couplings; Currently, I am developing a search for Higgs bosons decaying to charm quarks, incorporating the recent developments in jet substructure. In addition, I will continue working on searches for physics beyond the Standard Model, focusing on the search for top squarks. In parallel with these physics analyses, I would like to pursue further applications of Machine Learning (ML) techniques in High Energy Physics. The significant improvements obtained in the reconstruction of boosted SM particles bodes well for deploying these techniques to other areas of the experiment including event selection and reconstruction, especially in the context of the High Luminosity LHC. I plan to contribute directly in the High Granularity Calorimeter upgrade program.

My role in CMS past and present:

I joined CMS as an undergraduate student before the LHC startup. My main focus at that time was on the R&D and commissioning of the CASTOR calorimeter of CMS. Since the beginning of the first LHC run, I focused my efforts on searches for SUSY; both inclusive and targeted searches in "natural SUSY" scenarios. To this end, in the early days of Run 1, I worked extensively on the commissioning of the reconstruction and understanding of missing transverse momentum (MET). Based on this experience I was the MET group convener from 2016-2018. Currently, I am serving as co-coordinator of the combinations of the SUSY analyses towards the Run 2 Legacy results. I have also been deeply involved in the developments in jet substructure, introducing novel techniques for the identification of boosted jets by deploying advanced ML methods that yield substantial gains with respect to existing approaches. Since 2017 I am co-leader of the SUSY "Heavy Object Tagging" group.