Overview
His research interests are dominated by instrumentation for particle physics experiments at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, particularly now focused on extending the CMS operational lifetime into the high luminosity era from 2026. Radiation damage precludes survival of the silicon tracking sensors, and a replacement detector must have greater granularity and higher speed readout, as well as increased radiation tolerance. It must also provide data to be used by the CMS trigger to select rare events efficiently. The Imperial group has contributed several unique ideas to make this possible. The first is to deploy double-layer silicon modules (“pT-modules”) to identify high transverse momentum tracks, to design front end electronics, the CBC ASIC, to provide this information, and an off-detector system to process it. In 2016, a team demonstrated the viability of FPGAs for sufficiently fast, efficient track reconstruction for the HL-LHC based on these ideas.
Other Significant Activities |
| 1998 - present Professor of Physics, Imperial College 2008- 2019 Principal Investigator, UK CMS collaboration for Upgrades of the Tracker and Trigger of the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC 2008- 2015 Principal Investigator, UK CMS. 2006- 2007 Paid Scientific Associate, CERN for one year. 2003- 2006 PPARC Senior Fellowship 2003- 2006 I-IMAS project, European Commission, “Intelligent Imaging Sensors for Industry, Health and Security”, 1999- 2008 Deputy CMS Tracker Project Manager 1999- 2001 BRSMS project, European Commission, “Biomedical radiography and radioscopy using silicon microstrip sensors” 1994-1997 Professorial Research Fellow 1993- 1998 Founder member, CERN RD23 R&D project, “Optoelectronic Analogue Signal Transfer for LHC Detectors” 1992- 2008 Electronics Coordinator, Tracker detector, CMS experiment 1992- 1998 Electronics Coordinator, CMS experiment 1992- present UK CMS Tracker detector project, Leader 1991- 1996 Co-spokesperson and founder member, CERN RD20 R&D project, with P. Weilhammer, CERN, “Development of high resolution silicon strip detectors for experiments at high luminosity at LHC” 1991 Academic visitor, University of California, Santa Cruz 1990-1993 Principal Research Fellow, Imperial College 1989- 1991 R&D project for silicon tracking detectors for the Superconducting Supercollider 1989- 1991 Wolfson Medical Projects Scheme, “The application of silicon detectors to digital autoradiography” in collaboration with the Institute of Cancer Research, Royal Marsden Hospital. 1977-1989 Senior physicist programmer, Imperial College 1974- 1977 Post-doctoral Research Assistant, Imperial College. |