LHC Physics Center

What I will be working on:

I will be working on a search for strongly interacting, dark sector particles using the full 13 TeV dataset. Specifically I will be looking for emerging jets (EMJ) arising from dark quarks, one of the decay products of a dark mediator particle. While this search was previously performed with a limited set of 2016 data, I will work with several members of the LPC to update it to include the 2017 and 2018 data. We will also study the possibility of improving signal extraction and jet tagging using deep learning. Additionally, I will continue and expand my work on the Phase-2 L1 trigger upgrade project, focusing on the track trigger (TT) and the global track trigger (GTT). For the TT I will contribute to the track reconstruction firmware as well as the hardware slice demonstrations. I will continue to expand the capabilities of the GTT by implementing new reconstruction algorithms for both prompt and displaced objects.

My role in CMS past and present:

I have been a member of the CMS collaboration since 2008 and have participated in a wide variety of activities. My graduate thesis work involved looking for the Higgs boson using a computationally expensive matrix element technique as well as boosted decision trees. As a postdoc I became a member of the RA2/b SUSY analysis group, which looks for new physics in all hadronic final states. The supersymmetric models we look for involve direct gluino and squark production. We are currently working on a search for gluinos and Higgsinos in the H(bb)H(bb)+MET final state. I'm now beginning to look at other exotic models of new physics, including those involving emerging jets. Beyond my analysis work, I've also participated in numerous other facets of CMS. I started out as an undergraduate working on the electronics for the endcap muon system. During my time in graduate school I also made major contributions to the study and calibration jets through the derivation of jet energy corrections (JEC) and the software used to access them. As an extension of this work, I also assisted with the JetMET studies used in the Phase-2 upgrade technical proposal and scope document. Additionally, I served as the Alignment and Calibration JERC contact, maintaining the database of JECs and jet energy resolutions (JER). Since then, my upgrade work has moved away from jets. I'm now involved in the upgrade of the Phase-2 L1 trigger system. Particularly, I work on the new track-trigger system and the reconstruction of track-only objects (vertices, jets, MET, etc.) on FPGAs. In the past, I have served as the co-convener of the SUSY trigger subgroup as well as the MET contact for the SUSY group. I’m currently a co-convener of the CMS ML Knowledge subgroup.