What do you do here at Wright Lab?
I’m a member of the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Group (RHIG) working under supervision of Prof. Caines on the STAR experiment. STAR is situated on the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory, located just across the Sound on Long Island, and detects nuclear collisions at almost the speed of light. I analyze these data – specifically rare scatterings with high momentum transfer and their modification due to propagation through the thermal medium of deconfined quarks and gluons created by the high-energy collisions. The goal is to learn about the microscopic properties of this medium and, by extension, about the strong interaction, one of the four fundamental forces of nature.
What is the most unique and/or exciting experience you’ve had here at Wright Lab?
Just a couple of weeks after I started as a postdoc here, a pretty large contingent of the early-career scientists in the group attended a conference called Hot Quarks in remote Estes Park, Colorado intended for young nuclear physicists. After sessions each day, attendees would hang out and be social until the wee hours of the morning. After all of us had given our talks, we stayed up very late one night having fun, and a group of mostly RHIG members got up very early to hike to one of the peaks of Twin Sisters before that day’s sessions started, chatting while we walked. After a 600 meter elevation gain, we summited before the sun rose. At about 3500 meters above sea level in the dark in October, the rocks were still frosted over and slippery and it became pretty difficult to scramble over them in low visibility. As we came back down a bit dejected that we didn’t have time to wait for the sun, we arrived at a bare ridge, and suddenly saw brilliant rays of light peak over the cloud cover illuminating the surroundings. After soaking up the beautiful scenery for a minute, we continued the descent and some of the braver ones sprinted ahead to grab us all some breakfast from the buffet before it closed. That morning was an unforgettable way to get to know some of my new colleagues, and a great bonding experience.
What are you looking forward to in the coming year at Wright Lab?
A few weeks ago, as part of the Yale Pathways to Science Summer Scholars program, some RHIG members hosted a week-long course, created by former Wright Lab postdoc Raghav Kunnawalkam Elayavalli, called, “What’s inside the proton? Smash it to find out!” with high-schoolers from the New Haven area. We introduced them to the physics of the Electron-Ion Collider, which will be operational around when they would be finishing grad school if they decide to be physicists. We all had a lot of fun, and I’m really excited to work with the RHIG members to make it an even better experience for the students next year.
What is something that people might not know about you that you’d like to share with the community?
I’ve always hated memorization (which is part of why I love physics). As a consequence, geography was never my strong suit. But I tend to really enjoy improving my weak points. On shift at the STAR experiment last year, some colleagues visiting from the Czech Republic were playing a geography game called Worldle. They thought it was funny that the American was stereotypically hovering around a 50% accuracy. Over the next year I played the game almost every day, and now have a score over 90% (which is being pulled down mostly by those early bad scores) and would consider myself almost a geography whiz. A little practice goes a long way!