Research
I have worked on the design and construction of the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider(LHC) at CERN from the start of the project. I was part of the Oxford team that assembled the barrel section of the ATLAS SemiConductor Tracker (SCT). I was also responsible for the development and commissioning of the optical links for the read-out of the SCT. I led the work to understand and deal with the reliability issues with the optoelectronics. The SCT has been operating very successfully in ATLAS since the start of Physics operation in 2010 and has been vital for all ATLAS physics studies including the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012.
I am currently working on the upgraded ATLAS tracker (ITk) that will replace the current tracker for operation in the High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC). I am using my experience from the SCT to perform very rigorous reliability studies for optoelectronic systems for the ITk. I am also leading the UK work to assemble the integrated carbon fibre sandwich structures which support the silicon modules and provide all the electrical, optical and cooling services. I am also working very closely with engineers and technicians on the design and testing of the 1.4m long electrical flexible tapes which provide all the power and signal communications to the modules.