Displaying items by tag: Elementary Particles

Biography

Anson Hook obtained his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2012. Afterwards, he did postdoctoral work at the Institute for Advanced Study and Stanford. He joined the faculty at the University of Maryland in 2018. Hook works in theoretical particle physics. He focuses on theories beyond the standard model (model building), analyzing the signatures of these new theories at current experiments (phenomenology) and designing new experiments to look for evidence of dark matter.

Biography

Kaustubh Agashe obtained his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley in 1998. After conducting postdoctoral research at the University of Oregon, Johns Hopkins University and (briefly) the Institute of Advanced Study (Princeton), he joined the faculty of the physics department at Syracuse University in 2005. He then moved to the University of Maryland in 2007. Professor Agashe's research is in the field of theoretical particle physics (more details are under the "personal website" link). He works on ideas going beyond the standard model of particle physics. This research includes building new models and making predictions for them which can be tested in experiments ("phenomenology") and plotting direct production of new particles at high-energy colliders and calculating their indirect detection in lower-energy experiments.

Biography

Raman Sundrum is the John S. Toll Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland. He did his undergraduate studies at University of Sydney in Australia and received his Ph.D. from Yale University. He did his postdoctoral research at UC Berkeley, Harvard, BU and Stanford. He joined the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the Johns Hopkins University in 2000, and became one of two Alumni Centennial Chairs there. In 2010, he moved to the University of Maryland. His research in particle physics and cosmology focuses on theoretical mechanisms and observable implications of extra spacetime dimensions, supersymmetry, and strongly coupled dynamics. His highest impact contribution to the field is a class of extra-dimensional models called the Randall–Sundrum models, first published in 1999 with Lisa Randall. Sundrum is a UMD Distinguished University Professor.

Biography

Sylvester James Gates Jr. holds the Clark Leadership Chair in Science. During his decades with the UMD Department of Physics, he was named a Distinguished University Professor, University System of Maryland Regents Professor and John S. Toll Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland. Known for his pioneering work in supersymmetry and supergravity, areas closely related to string theory, Gates was also an affiliate mathematics professor. Gates earned two Bachelor of Science degrees (in physics and mathematics) and his Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1984, Gates co-authored Superspace: One Thousand and One Lessons in Supersymmetry, the first comprehensive book on supersymmetry, and joined the UMD faculty as an associate professor. Four years later, he became the first African American to hold an endowed chair in physics at a major U.S. research university.

The author of more than 200 research papers and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Gates has been featured in dozens of video documentaries, including five in 2015. For his contribution to science and research, he received the National Medal of Science from President Obama in 2013. Gates has served on the U.S. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, the National Commission on Forensic Science, and the Maryland State Board of Education. He is a strong advocate for science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. He has  served as president of both the National Society of Black Physicists and the American Physical Society.

PCAST Appointment by President Obama
Regents Professor Appointment by Chancellor Kirwan

Biography

Professor Chacko is a theoretical physicist, and a founding member of the Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics (MCFP). His research interests lie in elementary particle physics, the field that studies the fundamental constituents of matter and their interactions. The primary focus of Professor Chacko's research is the study of new theories that can explain some of the puzzles of the current Standard Model of particle physics, and that can be tested by current or upcoming experiments. He has made contributions to our understanding of weak scale supersymmetry, extra dimensions, grand unification, composite Higgs models, dark matter, baryogenesis and neutrino physics. Professor Chacko's work has connections to many different types of experiments, including the Large Hadron Collider, the direct and indirect detection of dark matter, precision observations of the cosmic microwave background, neutrino oscillation studies, searches for rare processes and short range tests of Newton's law of gravitation.