CMS

CERN’s accelerators and the LHC’s detectors have undergone major upgrades that will allow scientists to collect more data in the upcoming run than they did in the previous two runs combined.

Whether he is on the side of a mountain or working at the Fermilab Quantum Institute, Cristián Peña likes to explore the unknown and tackle new challenges. Although he spends most of his time working on quantum communication systems for FQI, Peña dedicates time to work on the CMS experiment. His work between the two experiments, while different in practice, are conceptually similar.

The annual Universities Research Association Thesis Award recognizes outstanding work for a thesis conducted at or in collaboration with Fermilab. Zhang’s winning Ph.D. dissertation included insights into both physics searches and equipment upgrades at the Large Hadron Collider’s CMS detector. Fermilab serves as the U.S. hub for CMS.

Fast electronics and artificial intelligence are helping physicists working on experiments with massive amounts of data, such as the CMS experiment, decide which data to keep and which to throw away.