ATLAS Experiment, CERN (July 2012 - Today)

Exotic searches
July 2014 – Today
The Edinburgh group is conducting searches for anomalous signals in final states with WW, WZ, ZZ dibosons, right-handed charged bosons and heavy neutrinos, and Dark Matter particles decaying to boosted jets in association with an electroweak boson. Details can be found at our Exotic page.

Trigger
September 2012 – Today
The Edinburgh group is working on a wide range of High-Level Trigger and trigger upgrade activities. Details can be found at our trigger page.

Higgs properties
September 2012 – June 2014
The Edinburgh group worked on the measurement of the Higgs boson properties (mass, signal strength, width) with the Run-1 data. Details can be found at our Higgs page.

FCC-ee study, CERN (September 2013 - Today)

Convener of Online Software & Computing group (WG10)
February 2014 – Today
  • Evaluation of physics and beam-induced trigger rates & event sizes
  • Proposal of software & hardware solutions for triggers of FCC ee experiments

CMS Experiment, CERN (January 2005 - June 2012)

Physics Analysis
May 2008 – June 2012
Actively working on and leading the Wʹ boson search
  • Leading the W´ discovery effort for the 2011-12 Run by implementing a comprehensive search strategy, covering leptonic (μν, eν), hadronic (tb, ℓ Ν) and bosonic (WZ, Wγ) channels
  • Recent public results include:
    • Search for exotic resonances decaying into WZ/ZZ in pp colliisons at √s=7 TeV. Most stringent limit in the world with 2011 data [arXiv:1211.5779, JHEP02 (2013) 036]
    • Search for exotic particles decaying in WZ in pp colliisons at √s=7 TeV. Most stringent limit in the world with 2011 data [arXiv:1206.0433, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 141801 (2012)]
    • Search for leptonic decays of W' bosons in pp colliisons at √s=7 TeV. Most stringent limit in the world with 2011 data [arXiv:1204.4764, JHEP 08 (2012) 023]
    • Search for a W' boson decaying to a muon and a neutrinoc in pp colliisons at √s=7 TeV. Most stringent limit in the world with 2010 data (arXiv:1103.0030, Phys. Lett. B701, 160–179, 2011)
  • Developed a novel method for the analytical description of the lepton (μ, e) pT spectrum in the context of Wʹ searches (CMS Analysis Note 2009/157). Method commissioned with first W→μν data for 2010 Summer conferences (CMS Conference Note PFT-10-003)
  • Local research advisor for six PhD students (first CMS W→μν cross-section measurement and Wʹ searches)
Deputy Trigger Coordinator
July 2007 – June 2011
  • Coordinated preparation and deployment of several trigger menus for pp collision runs at 1E27 through 1E33 (√s=900 GeV, 2.36 TeV and 7 TeV). Overviewed the High-Level Trigger (HLT) commissioning with tens of millions of minimum bias events. HLT recorded more than one billion pp collision events in 2010 during the first LHC Run with minimal downtime. Collected datasets used in more than fifty papers published in refereed journals
  • Coordinated the extensive testing of HLT with the preparation of trigger menus for cosmic runs (JINST 5:T03005,2010, e-Print: arXiv:0911.4889, Summer 2009). The menus were used to collect about 300M cosmic events for detector performance studies (documented in 24 refereed journals)
  • Organised Trigger Reviews across CMS for the optimization of trigger menus (Winter 2008-09,CMS Note IN-2010/022)
  • Planned trigger menus for large-scale MC productions (2007, 2008 CMS computing & software exercises). First HLT tests at CMS with realistic alignment/calibration detector conditions
  • Worked on the revision of HLT data model for reduced memory footprint
Online Selection Physics Group Convener
May 2005 – June 2007
  • Coordinated the implementation of a realistic trigger menu (using simulated data produced in RAW format as expected from readout, the full Level-1 emulator and a large number of HLT paths) for the first time in CMS. Successfully demonstrated that the physics and CPU-performance of the HLT are fully consistent with the CMS physics program and resources. Report submitted to LHC Committee (CERN-LHCC 2007-021, LHCC-G-134)
  • Overviewed the porting of HLT algorithms to new CMS software framework (CMSSW). Worked on HLT design (handling of partial data unpacking and regional reconstruction at HLT for improved CPU performance)
  • Overviewed the compilation of a 2E33 trigger menu for Physics TDR volume 2. Editor of the trigger chapter (J.Phys.G34:995-1579, 2007, a paper with more than 500 citations)
Physics & Data Quality Monitoring
February 2005 – March 2007
  • Designed DQM infrastructure and worked as main developer. Implemented server-client networking, and libraries of monitoring elements, quality tests, alarms (15th International Conference CHEP 2006 Proceedings)
  • Released first prototype to CMS, employed by subdetectors during Magnet Test (“Cosmic Challenge”, Fall 2006)
  • Monitoring solution has been widely adopted across CMS (HLT, subdetectors, validation of software releases and physics MC production, data certification)

DØ Experiment, FNAL (September 2000 - September 2004)

B Mixing & Lifetimes Physics Group Convener
September 2003 – September 2004
  • Organised and planned group priorities. Coordinated physics results presented at Aspen, Lake Louise, La Thuile, Moriond conferences
  • Worked on development of utilities common in several analyses
Physics Analysis
January 2003 – September 2004
  • Developed reconstruction framework for B semileptonic decays (DØ Notes 4559 and 4581)
  • Developed soft-lepton b-flavor tagging algorithm & interface for combining multiple taggers
  • Worked on determination of proper time resolution in Bs0 semileptonic decays (DØ Notes 4244 and 4600, and Phys.Rev.Lett.97:241801,2006)
  • Developed fitting infrastructure for Bd0 and Bs0 semileptonic mixing studies
  • Carried out first Bd0 mixing measurement at DØ combining three taggers with 200 pb-1 of data (DØ conference Note 4578, one of the most competitive measurements at a hadron collider at the time)
My involvement with the B mixing analysis effort culminated with the first DØ paper on “Direct Limits on the Bs Oscillation Frequency” (Phys.Rev.Lett.97:021802,2006, a paper with more than 250 citations)

Level-2 Muon Trigger System (L2MU)
September 2000 – September 2004
  • Coordinated the integration and commissioning of L2MU (first L2 trigger system at DØ to go on-line; Nucl.Instrum.Meth.A565:463-537,2006)
  • Developed memory management administrator code for eighty 200-MHz Texas Instruments DSP 6200 chips and the programming of DSP chips with embedded algorithms
  • Developed the physics algorithms for muon identification; Code has been running online continuously since beginning of Run-II
  • Integrated the L2MU in trigger simulator; Worked on driver and on-line utilities
  • Served as L2 on-call expert (January 2002 – September 2004)

Belle Experiment, KEK (May 1997 - August 2000)

Physics Analysis
May 1997 – August 2000
  • Carried out Bd0 Mixing measurement (best in the world at the time) and evaluated upper limit on CPT-violating signals in dilepton events (first in the world in the B system). Thesis dissertation results published in first paper of Belle collaboration (Phys.Rev.Lett.86:3228-3232,2001, a paper with more than 100 citations)
  • Worked on MC Studies of Leptonic Flavor Violation (τ→μγ channel, Belle Note 228)
  • Worked on CLEO’s QQ MC Event Generator software. Implemented handling of CP Violation in charmonium modes and CPT Violation in proper time distributions (Belle Note 310)
Aerogel Čerenkov Counter Readout System
May 1997 – August 2000
Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A433, 385-391 (1999) and Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A453, 321-325 (2000)
  • Implemented the back-plane and Crate Controller boards of readout system
  • Worked on data acquisition and data analysis for beam test of prototype at KEK (Belle Note 211)
  • Developed software for the testing and maintenance of ninety 26-channel boards

HERA-B Experiment, DESY (September 1995 - January 1997)

Straw Tube Chamber With Pickup-Pad Readout
September 1995 - January 1997
Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A427, 465-486 (1999)
  • Worked on MC Simulation studies of chamber efficiency
  • Worked on data acquisition and data analysis for beam test of prototype at BNL (HERA-B Note 97-013, HIGH-PT 97-002)



Last revised: March 2017