Biographical Sketch:
Prof. Sarah Demers is an experimental particle physicist in the Yale Physics Department. She uses tau leptons to probe for and characterize physics beyond the Standard Model with the ATLAS experiment and hunts for signs of new physics at the Mu2e Experiment.
Demers has held many leadership roles in the ATLAS collaboration. She has served on three ATLAS Editorial Boards and was appointed to the ATLAS Collaboration Board Chair Advisory group. She was a Large Hadron Collider Physics (LHCP) Conference Chair, and hosted the US ATLAS Summer meeting at Yale in 2023.
Demers is the ATLAS Deputy Data Preparation convener, was formerly a co-convener of the ATLAS Upgrade Physics group, was co-lead on the ATLAS Data Quality Group, and is the Chair of the US ATLAS Institute Board. With her leadership, Yale is an ATLAS Trigger and Data Acquisition Institute with design and validation responsibilities.
Prof. Demers will become the next Chair of the Yale Physics Department on July 1, 2025. She also served as the Yale Physics Director of Undergraduate Studies.
Demers joined the faculty of Yale Physics in 2009. Previously, she worked at CERN as a postdoctoral researcher, and before that, she taught at Roberts Wesleyan University.
Demers received her Ph.D. from the University of Rochester and an A.B. in Physics from Harvard University.
Demers is engaged with bringing science to the public realm through radio programs, op-eds, podcasts, talks, and outreach experiences.
Demers also collaborates with Emily Coates, Professor in the Practice of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies and Directing at the David Geffen School of Drama. Coates and Demers co-teach a course on Physics and Dance at Yale University and have written a book based, in part, on their class.
Research:
Prof. Demers’ group focuses on using tau leptons to probe for and characterize physics beyond the standard model with ATLAS at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. Current projects include the search for a Z’ boson that decays to tau pairs, the search for the standard model boson produced in association with a W or Z boson (where Demers co-convenes the analysis), and a measure of tau polarization in Z boson decays. In addition, we work on the trigger for the experiment.
Mu2e, located at Fermilab in Illinois, will search for the conversion of a muon directly to an electron in the field of a nucleus. This process, all but forbidden in the Standard Model, is enhanced in some compelling extensions to the Standard Model and a signal at Mu2e would be a clear sign of new physics. The Demers group is heavily engaged with development on the Mu2e trigger, including writing and optimizing many algorithms and leadership in the Trigger and Data Acquisition group. Demers is on the Mu2e publications board. She also led the “Engaging Non-Experts” group to help new people transition into the collaboration by developing computing tutorials and documentation.
Education:
Ph.D., University of Rochester, 2005
Honors & Awards:
Prof. Demers is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), holds a number of leadership positions in both the ATLAS and Mu2e collaborations, and served on the national Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5). She was also a U.S. ATLAS Fellow during the Upgrade Physics at ATLAS in 2012.
Demers has received several Yale University awards and honors, including the Yale Provost Teaching Award (2014), the Yale Poorvu Family Award for Interdisciplinary Teaching (2012), and she was the Yale University Whitney Humanities Fellow from 2013-2014. Also in 2012, Demers received the Yale University and New Haven Seton Elm-Ivy Award for bridging the gap between Yale and New Haven with the Girls Science Investigations (GSI) Program, co-Directed with Bonnie Fleming.
Demers received the Division of Mathematics and Natural Sciences Teaching Award at Roberts Wesleyan College during the academic year 2005-2006.
Selected Publications:
