Doing a PhD with the ATLAS Group

The ATLAS group is looking for new students! We’re a large and dynamic group of more than 50 people including faculty members, lab scientists, postdocs, and graduate students; in addition we host several undergrad students and visitors. We have a broad research program currently including a large range of Standard Model measurements and searches for new physics, hardware R&D currently focused on the upgrade of the ATLAS Inner Tracker for HL-LHC, and software and computing, including research and development towards usage of novel hardware and software. Our students typically participate in a few different areas of research as part of their PhD thesis.

Potential Supervisors

In addition to our three faculty members, Heather Gray, Marjorie Shapiro and Haichen Wang, we also have graduate students doing PhDs with scientists at LBNL. Here are some details about some members of the group who are looking for new students, so please feel free to get in touch with us if you’re interested and have any questions.

  • Heather Gray, heather.gray@berkeley.edu, hgray@lbl.gov
    • Possible projects with me include: searches for the coupling of the Higgs boson to charm quarks, using novel approaches from machine learning to identify charm quarks, development of new charged particle track reconstruction algorithms.
  • Zach Marshall, ZLMarshall@lbl.gov
    • Possible projects with me include searches for new physics (particularly Supersymmetry) in scenarios with difficult-to-identify signals or large backgrounds. I’m also interested in a variety of software problems that face the ATLAS collaboration.
  • Simone Pagan-Griso, spagangriso@lbl.gov [not currently accepting new students]
    • Possible projects with me include: searches for new long-lived particles with dedicated reconstruction algorithms; measurement of standard-model quartic gauge couplings and searches for beyond-standard-model particles in purely electromagnetic proton-proton interactions; development of charged particle reconstruction algorithms.
  • Haichen Wang, haichenwang@lbl.gov haichenwang@berkeley.edu
    • Possible projects with me include: measurement of Higgs boson coupling, differential cross sections, other properties (CP, mass, width, etc), search for exotic production and decay of the Higgs boson; search and measurement of rare processes four top quark production, exclusive three top quark production. Focus is on processes not yet well studied and measurements where significant improvements can be made.

Current Grad Students

If you’d like to hear about working in the ATLAS group from the perspective of a current graduate student, please feel free to get in contact with any of us:

  • Johannes Wagner
    • My primary research interest lies in the application of machine learning techniques to problems in experimental high-energy physics. In particular I’m looking to improve our charm jet identification algorithms to better constrain the Higgs to charm coupling. In addition, I’m currently working on a measurement of the VH(cc) process in the high momentum regime.
  • Luc Le Pottier
    • I am working on measuring tH and ttH production, with the goal of measuring the CP properties of the Higgs-top interaction, and on various machine learning projects for particle physics. I have previously worked on a number of hardware projects, including ASIC testing for the new ATLAS ITk system, data acquisition system software and firmware development, sensor material characterizations and research, and beam telescope construction + measurements.
  • Liam Foster
    • I’m studying the production of a Z boson in association with a charm quark.
  • Luke Grossman
    • I’m working on a testing setup for the ITk Pixel detector that integrates cooling and is suitable to perform all needed electrical tests on four modules in parallel.
  • Charles Hultquist
    • I am studying the CP properties of the top-Higgs interaction. I am also working on improving the performance of photon conversion reconstruction in ATLAS’s inner tracking detector.
  • Laura Nosler
    • I’m currently involved in the development of Data Acquisition software for testing of the ITk Pixel modules for the HL-LHC upgrade.
  • Hadley Queiroz
    • I’m working on a measurement of the Higgs-charm coupling in high-momentum decays. I also work on calibrating the algorithms that predict the flavor of jets.
  • Chengxi Yang
    • I am working on the energy calibration of electrons and photons using graph neural networks. Previously, I worked on measuring the total width of the Higgs boson through the H→WW decay mode.
  • Zhirong (Stella) Zhang
      • I’m part of the team measuring high-momentum Higgs bosons decaying to charm quarks in the associated production channel of the Higgs boson with a W or Z boson. My current focus is on estimating the efficiency of correctly identifying charm jets with a flavour tagging algorithm named GN3.
  • Jose Esparza
    • I am working on developing graph neural network-based photon identification algorithms to enhance discrimination between prompt photons and backgrounds.

See the dedicated page for details about the thesis topics for previous grad students and where they are today.