LPC Distinguished Researcher

Name:

Freya Blekman

Institution:

Vrije Universiteit Brussel

What I will be working on:

Blekman will use the LPC distinguished researcher mandate to strengthen the search/measurement and interpretation of the search for four top quarks and to train young scientists in the communication of their physics results.

My role in CMS past and present:

Prof. Freya Blekman joined the CMS experiment in 2005 after her PhD which was at the D0 experiment at Fermilab, and worked on the construction and startup of the experiment as a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial College London and Cornell University. Blekman has been doing top quark physics for 20 years and has led many physics and working groups at in CMS, focusing on top quarks, searching for physics beyond the Standard Model using top quarks, and is currently taking the role of Physics Communications Officer in the CMS Collaboration. In CMS, Blekman’s group at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel was responsible for the first top quark pair cross section measurement with b-tagging in the l+jets channel, first observation of tW production and multiple searches for BSM including some with long-lived particles.