What Our Alumni are up to

 

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Research in Particle Physics, both for senior undergraduates and postgraduates, provides a broad-based training on many levels, developing skills which can be used regardless of whether you continue in an academic or research career in particle physics, or move on to other things. The ability to rigorously analyse a problem and figure out how to solve it, skills which are essential in experimental or theoretical particle physics, is something which any employer values.

Much of our work involves the use of high-performance computing, and the technical expertise that students gain in modern computing languages such as C++ and Python, in the understanding and dealing with large and complex computer codes, and in how to simulate a problem and make predictions which can be compared to experiment, stand them in good stead in fields that range from information technology to the financial sector.

Here are some examples of what our graduates have gone on to do:

• Matt Talia (Ph.D. graduate in 2018) now works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center in Warsaw in Poland.

• Jie (Shelley) Liang (Ph.D. graduate in 2018) now works as a data scientist at Westpac in Sydney.

• Adrian Manning (Ph.D. graduate in 2017) is now a director of the company Sigma Prime (which he co-founded) which has expertise in Blockchain technologies and cybersecurity.

• Neil Barrie (Ph.D. graduate in 2017) now works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) in Tokyo.

• Jason Yue (Ph.D. graduate in 2016) now works as a postdoctoral researcher at the National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei.

• Alexander Spencer-Smith (Ph.D. graduate in 2016) now works as a Quantitative Researcher for Optiver Asia-Pacific.

• Curtis Black (Ph.D. graduate in 2016) worked at the Powerhouse Museum (Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences) in Sydney, and now works at Animal Logic in Sydney.

• Mark Scarcella (Ph.D. graduate in 2016) now works at the Powerhouse Museum (Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences) in Sydney.

• Cameron Cuthbert (Ph.D. graduate in 2014) now works in management at Price Waterhouse Coopers in Sydney.

• Nikhul Patel, (Ph.D. graduate in 2014) obtained a Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship for two years, allowing him to work as a postdoc on the T2K experiment at Kyoto University.

• Ian Watson, (Ph.D. graduate in 2014) obtained a Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship for two years, allowing him to work as a postdoc on the Belle II experiment at the University of Tokyo. He currently holds a research fellowship at the University of Seoul, working on the CMS experiment.

• Thomas Cunningham, (M.Sc graduate in 2013) worked for DSTO in Canberra before returning to an IT role at the University of Sydney. He now works as a software engineer at Atlassian in Sydney.

• Samuel McOnie, (PhD. graduate in 2012) trained as a high school teacher. He currently works as a mathematics and science teacher at Ryde Secondary College at Sydney.

• Jason Lee, (Ph.D graduate in 2011) obtained a Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship for two years, based at Osaka University, where he worked on the ATLAS experiment. He now holds a faculty position at the University of Seoul, working on the CMS experiment.

• Anthony Waugh, (PhD. graduate in 2009) now operates a 5000 acre grazing property in the NSW Central Tablelands where he pursues sustainable farming techniques.

• Shoshanna Cole (MSc graduate in 2007) went on to complete a PhD at Cornell University, working on the Mars Rover program.

• Aldo Saavedra, (Ph.D. graduate in 2002) held a postdoctoral position at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California, working on the ATLAS experiment at CERN. He then held a postdoctoral position at the University of Glasgow, working on another LHC experiment, LHCB. He worked back with us for a number of years as a postdoctoral researcher on ATLAS, and currently works on data science elsewhere at the University of Sydney.

• Malcolm Ellis, (Ph.D. graduate in 2002) held a postdoctoral position in High Energy Physics at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford in the U.K. He then worked as a postdoc at Imperial College London and a lecturer at Brunel University. Malcolm worked on the CERN HARP experiment, and on the development of future neutrino beams. He now works back in Sydney for Westpac Bank.

• Jiangui Wang, (Ph.D. graduate in 2001) held a postdoc at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute in the USA, working on Belle and based mostly at KEK in Japan. He then worked on Grid computing in Tsukuba. He now has a position at ANSTO.

• Andrew Godley, (Ph.D. graduate in 2001) moved to a postdoc in High Energy Physics at the University of South Carolina, working on the long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment MINOS, which sent neutrinos from Fermilab near Chicago to the SOUDAN mine, 730 km away in Minnesota. He also continued to work on NOMAD. Now he has moved into Medical Physics in the US.

• Bruce Yabsley, (Ph.D. graduate in 2000) moved to the KEK laboratory in Japan, where he held a Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship for two years. He worked on the Belle experiment searching for CP Violation in the B meson system. He then held a postdoctoral position at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, who are also members of Belle. He returned to Sydney where he held an ARC Research Fellowship and then an ARC Future Fellowship, in each case on the Belle and ATLAS experiments. Currently he continues to work with us on the Belle, Belle II and ATLAS experiments. He holds a teaching and research position in the School of Physics.

• Steven Boyd, (Ph.D. graduate in 1999) secured a postdoc position at the University of Washington in Seattle, working on the K2K neutrino oscillation experiment in Japan. He then held a prestigious Monbusho Fellowship from the Japanese Government to continue work on K2K. He was based at the KEK laboratory, where the neutrino beam is produced and the near detector is located, as well as at the SuperKamiokande detector in western Japan which is the far detector for the K2K experiment. He then went to the University of Pittsburgh, to work on neutrino experiments performed at Fermilab near Chicago. Steven now has a permanent position at the University of Warwick, continuing to work on neutrino experiments.

• Paul Soler, (Ph.D. graduate in 1993) worked with us here in Sydney as a postdoc on the NOMAD experiment, before moving to CERN for two years to a European Union Marie Curie Fellowship in 1998. He now has a permanent position in High Energy Physics at Glasgow University, working primarily on the CERN LHCb experiment.

• George Braoudakis, (Ph.D. graduate in 1993) did some lecturing in the School of Physics, before moving to a permanent position at ANSTO to work on neutron physics, where he has remained very busy with the OPAL research reactor.