Graduate Student Wins Top Award for Particle Physics Dissertation
March 20, 2006Maria Florencia Canelli, a recent doctoral student at the University of Rochester, won the American Physical Society's 2005 Mitsuyoshi Tanaka Dissertation Award in Experimental Particle Physics.
Her dissertation, completed in 2003 at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., under the supervision of Thomas Ferbel, professor of physics at Rochester, bested all other doctoral theses from around the world. The Tanaka Award recognizes exceptional young scientists who performed outstanding original doctoral work in experimental particle physics.
"Florencia was an inexhaustible bundle of energy and great fun to work with during her graduate years," said Ferbel. "Her development at Fermilab has been quite breathtaking, and she continues to impress me with her determination, her vigor, and her insights."
Canelli helped develop and implement a new and far more effective technique to measure the spins of "W bosons." The standard model of particle physics predicts that these W bosons have negative helicity, meaning they spin like left-handed screws. Finding evidence for W bosons of right-handed helicity would revolutionize the currently accepted understanding of particle interactions. This makes the measurement extraordinarily important to physics.
Canelli says she felt "proud and thankful" when she heard that she won the award, which consists of $1,500 and an allowance of up to $1,000 for travel to attend the annual meeting of the Division of Particles and Fields where the award will be presented. "I could never have done this without the help of Tom Ferbel," said Canelli.
Canelli is currently a postdoctoral student at the University of California at Los Angeles and is stationed at Fermilab where she is the head of a group studying a top quark experiment. Before coming to Rochester, Canelli studied at the Universities of Asuncion, Paraguay, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. She has been very active in outreach activities, and helped found the Young Particle Physicists organization. She served as a member of Fermilab Users' Executive Committee, and as a representative of the Graduate Student Association at Fermilab. Canelli also received the Frederick Lobkowicz Thesis Prize at Rochester in 2004, the New Talents Prize, and the Chien Shiung Wu Scholarship Award at the Erice School in 2001. Last year, Canelli won the University Research Association's award for the best doctoral thesis at Fermilab.
Source: University of Rochester
-
Engineers build first sub-10-nm carbon nanotube transistor
Feb 01, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (29) |
30
-
Something old, something new: Evolution and the structural divergence of duplicate genes
Jan 31, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (7) |
1
-
The hidden nanoworld of ice crystals: Revealing the dynamic behavior of quasi-liquid layers
Jan 30, 2012 |
5 / 5 (3) |
1
-
Stock market network reveals investor clustering
Jan 27, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (23) |
8
-
Of microchemistry and molecules: Electronic microfluidic device synthesizes biocompatible probes
Jan 26, 2012 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
More news stories
Borexino Collaboration succeeds in spotting pep neutrinos emitted from the sun
(PhysOrg.com) -- To learn more about how the sun works, scientists study particles that are emitted from it into space due to thermonuclear reactions that occur inside; by applying known physics principles, ...
Explained: Sigma
It's a question that arises with virtually every major new finding in science or medicine: What makes a result reliable enough to be taken seriously? The answer has to do with statistical significance -- but ...
1 hour ago |
not rated yet |
2
Transparent iron? For the first time, an experiment shows that atomic nuclei can become transparent
At the high-brilliance synchrotron light source PETRA III, a team of DESY scientists headed by Dr. Ralf Röhlsberger has succeeded in making atomic nuclei transparent with the help of X-ray light. At the ...
20 hours ago |
5 / 5 (8) |
2
|
Physicists build highly efficient 'no-waste' laser
A team of University of California, San Diego researchers has built the smallest room-temperature nanolaser to date, as well as an even more startling device: a highly efficient, "thresholdless" laser that ...
20 hours ago |
5 / 5 (17) |
3
|
Dutch team has solution for troubled ITER nuclear fusion reactor
(PhysOrg.com) -- The superconducting cables designed for the ITER fusion reactor (cost: 16 billion euros = $21.2 billion) are unable to withstand the planned forty to sixty thousand charge cycles. Barring a solution, the ...
23 hours ago |
5 / 5 (2) |
4
New Zealand team finds early plant arrivers dominated landscape
(PhysOrg.com) -- It seems intuitive that not all plant species could have taken a foothold on land at the same time all those millions of years ago as conditions on Earth evolved to the point where they could survive; some ...
Samsung can continue selling Galaxy tabs in Germany: court
South Korea's Samsung Electronics can continue to sell its Galaxy Tab 10.1N tablet computer in Germany, a German court ruled Thursday, rejecting a bid by arch-rival Apple to have them banned.
New views show old NASA Mars landers
(PhysOrg.com) -- The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter recorded a scene on Jan. 29, 2012, that includes the first color image from orbit showing ...
Engineers find inspiration for new materials in Piranha-proof armor
(PhysOrg.com) -- Its a matchup worthy of a late-night cable movie: put a school of starving piranha and a 300-pound fish together, and who comes out the winner?
Black holes and star formation
(PhysOrg.com) -- It has long been recognized that galaxy mergers or even close interactions can play a vital role in shaping the morphology of galaxies. One way they can do so, it is thought, is by triggering ...
Deciding to go left or right: Researchers use device to determine that lower animals can navigate too
For decades, scientists have associated binary decision making opting to go left or right with higher-ranking animals, including humans. A team of Harvard researchers, however, is rewriting that ...