What do you do here at Wright Lab?
I work in the lab of Professors Karsten Heeger and Reina Maruyama on the CUORE experiment. One of the primary goals of the experiment is to observe neutrinoless double beta decay, a super rare process in which a nucleus decays by emitting two electrons and 0 neutrinos, where typically two neutrinos would also be emitted! CUORE is preparing to reach a new Saiyan transformation called CUPID, which has much more strict background requirements. My role in Wright Lab has been in R&D work for scintillating panels that can tag muons that have high enough energy to pierce through the detector’s shielding.
What is the most unique and/or exciting experience you’ve had here at Wright Lab?
I’ve had a chance to learn a lot of hardware skills during my time here, but by far the most exciting was spray-painting some parts black and definitely NOT tagging the spray painting station in the workshop with a derpy face. Some say the perpetrator is still scheming in the Wright Lab walls.
What are you looking forward to in the coming year at Wright Lab?
I’m really looking forward to learning how to work with a cryostat, which we will need to use to test some equipment in cryogenic conditions.
What is something that people might not know about you that you’d like to share with the community?
Well one unusual thing I do is work as an on-ice official/referee for USA Hockey. It’s a lot of fun, except when coaches and parents forget how rational adults should behave themselves, although even that can be mildly entertaining for a time. People are also often surprised that I’m a native Russian speaker. Maybe it has something to do with my locs?