About
I am a Reader in Experimental Particle Physics and I am manager of the Neutrino Liquid Argon (LAr) facility at Liverpool, which I established in 2009. My research interests are focused on Neutrino Physics, Dark Matter searches and the development of liquid argon detector technologies.
In 2016 I was awarded an ERC starting grant for the project ARIADNE. This project aims for the construction and characterisation of a 1-ton two-phase LAr detector with superior imaging capabilities using cameras. The ARIADNE program will mature this new optical technology and in addition will have rich Physics studies including event reconstruction based on images, particle identification, electron and gamma separation ability, electron and pion cross sections in liquid argon and measurements of nuclear effects on argon interactions. ARIADNE will be placed at a charged particle beam-line at CERN. ARIADNE will also be used to demonstrate and develop the imaging capabilities of this detector approach for medical physics. For more information on the ARIADNE program please visit the website http://hep.ph.liv.ac.uk/ariadne/.
In parallel, I am the manager of the SBND 112-ton liquid argon TPC. SBND will be placed 110 m away from the source in the Booster neutrino beam at Fermi Lab and will comprise the near detector for the short baseline neutrino (SBN) program. SBND will collect high statistics data of unoscillated neutrino fluxes enabling it to make precision measurements of the neutrino interaction cross section in argon and additionally to search for sterile neutrino oscillations in combination with the SBN program far detectors. SBND is in the construction phase aiming to start data collection in 2019. For more information on the SBND program please see the website http://sbn-nd.fnal.gov/.
I am also actively collaborating on DUNE (an international effort towards colossal LAr underground detectors) and T2K(a long-baseline neutrino experiment in Japan). Past collaborations include LAGUNA-LBNO, Argon Dark Matter (ArDM), Livermore CNS prototype and ZEPLIN-II.
I am the Director of Employability Events for the Physics department.
My PhD, carried out at the University of Sheffield, was on the charaterisation of liquid argon and xenon as targets for direct dark matter detection. My undergraduate studies were at the University of Kent.
Prizes or Honours
- ERC starting grant -Project ARIADNE (European Research Council, 2016)