Wright Lab represented at APS DNP 2025 Fall Meeting

Several Wright Lab researchers contributed to the American Physical Society (APS) Division of Nuclear Physics (DNP)’s Fall Meeting (DNP 2025) on October 17-20 in Chicago. 

Helen Caines, Horace D. Taft Professor of Physics and Director of Graduate Studies in Physics gave an invited talk for the meeting’s Conference Experience for Undergraduates (CEU) program entitled “Thinking about Graduate School?” 

David Moore, associate professor of physics, chaired the workshop on Advanced Sensors for Nuclear Decay Experiments II. 

Zoltán Varga, postdoctoral associate, chaired the workshop “Next Generation of Jet Studies in Heavy-Ion Collisions I”. Ananya Rai, graduate student in physics, presented “Jet substructure and energy-energy correlators” at this workshop. 

Later in the week, Varga presented “Data driven approach to background subtraction for jet substructure measurements”. This talk included contributions from graduate students Rai, Andrew Tamis, and Sierra Cantway; and undergraduate Lily Chatalbasheva.

Isaac Mooney, associate research scientist, chaired the workshop “Next Generation of Jet Studies in Heavy-Ion Collisions II” and presented “Scintillating tile and silicon photomultiplier characterization for the LFHCal of the ePIC experiment,” which included contributions from Nathan Burns, undergraduate, and Vikram Dalal, a student from Wilbur Cross High School. 

Talia Weiss, graduate student in physics, gave a talk on “Sensitivity of a Project 8 Cubic-Meter Scale Neutrino Mass Experiment” 

Weiss said, “The DNP meeting provided a great opportunity to learn about the latest developments in our field, exchange ideas with colleagues, and present on work at Wright Lab (in my case, on the Project 8 experiment).” 

Mooney and Varga also represented Wright Lab and the Yale Physics department at the meeting’s graduate recruitment fair.  

Varga said, “It was inspiring to speak with so many enthusiastic students interested in pursuing Ph.D. research in nuclear physics. Our booth stayed busy throughout the fair—and not just because of the swag!”

Varga continued, “What stood out most was the diversity of the students’ backgrounds and how easily we could connect each of them to one of the many research areas at Wright Lab. It was a wonderful reminder of the lab’s broad and vibrant research community.”