Main Discipline(s):
Main Professional Societies:
Affiliation(s):
- Physics
- Astronomy
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Assistant Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Wayne State University
- B.Sc. Highest Distinction with Joint Honors in Mathematics and Physics – George Mason University, Fairfax VA
- PhD Theoretical Physics: “Gauge-Higgs Unification Phenomenology in Warped Extra Dimensions” – University of Chicago, Chicago IL
I am a theoretical high energy physicist. My work is focused on extending our understanding of what is called the “Standard Model” (SM) of particle physics which describes the known matter content of the Universe and the forces that govern their interactions. In 2012 the last piece of the SM, the Higgs boson, was discovered at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). However, we know that something not part of the SM called Dark Matter (DM) makes up the vast majority of matter in the Universe.
One astounding fact is that the vacuum is not empty, rather, the Higgs field permeates it and gives it an energy about ~250 times that of the proton mass. Fluctuations of this vacuum energy is what we perceive as the Higgs boson. Interactions of the matter fields with this background energy is what gives rise to the observed particle masses. However, we have no understanding of why the vacuum has this very specific energy. Tantalizingly, with our current understanding of the thermal evolution of the Universe, one naturally obtains the correct amount of DM in the Universe if the DM mass is about the order of magnitude of the Higgs vacuum energy and has similar interactions.
In recent years I have proposed models where multiple Higgs fields exist, but the SM sees only one particular vacuum energy configuration. Such models have included extra matter fields which may be possible DM candidates. These models generate signals that may be probed at the LHC, correlated with possible DM observations at various land and space based astrophysical experiments, in the near future.
I very boringly knew that I wanted to pursue a career as a physicist when I first studied it as a separate subject in middle school. As a senior in undergrad, I was firmly decided on theoretical high energy physics. Graduate school reaffirmed that decision.