Profile
Mei-Li Holmberg
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About Me:
I’m currently based in Geneva for my particle physics PhD. Whenever I have spare time and not feeling lazy, I will go out to hike, ski, or ride my bike. Sometimes I play the guitar very badly too.
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My pronouns are:
She/Her.
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I'm a member of team CMS
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My Work:
I am writing code to track particles in the CMS detector. Sometimes I also sit in a lab testing electronics, or look through CMS data to find some new exciting particles.
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Read more
Every 25 nanoseconds, the LHC will smash particles together to create new particles. We are not able to save the data from every single collision inside the CMS detector. Instead, we have a trigger system that picks only the most interesting events to save. One of the many inputs to the trigger is particle tracks. From the tracks, you are able to determine where the collisions happened and how much energy the new particles have. I am working on an algorithm that takes raw data and finds these tracks inside the CMS sub-detector called “Tracker”.
Sometimes I also work in the lab testing super fast electronics that send data through optical cables. There is a lot of data that has to be sent from the CMS detector to the systems that process the collision events. We need to make sure that the data is not lost or changed when we send it between systems. By testing the electronics and optical parts, we can find the best settings to avoid any loss of data.
There are many searches for new particles using the data from CMS. There are different theories that predict different particles. I am trying to find proof of a theory called “Supersymmetry”. Supersymmetry says that every particle that we have already found should have a partner particle. We have not found any partner particles yet…
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My work before CERN:
Before CERN I was just a university student in Stockholm.
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What I would like to do next?:
I don’t know… I will go wherever the world takes me!
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Education:
- Rymdgymnasiet (swedish for “space school”), Kiruna Sweden.
- Engineering Physics (BSc and MSc), Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm Sweden.
- Particle Physics PhD (still ongoing), University of Bristol and RAL, UK.
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Qualifications:
- BSc
- MSc
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Work History:
- Programming teacher for a non-profit organisation during some weekends during my studies in Stockholm.
- Continued teaching programming for second and third year university students during my PhD!
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Job title:
PhD Student.
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Employer:
University of Bristol and RAL.
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Happily confused student :-)
What did you want to be after you left school?
I had no idea... and I still don't!
Were you ever in trouble at school?
No...
If you weren't doing this job, what would you choose instead?
Carpenter, baker, or software engineer?
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Oceansize (the most underrated band on planet earth)
What's your favourite food?
Sushi!
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
I wish both my feet were the same size. I wish I did not need to sleep. I wish I found sports I liked before turning 25 (now I'm so incredibly unfit...).
Tell us a joke.
What’s the best thing about Switzerland? I don’t know, but the flag is a big plus.
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