Curriculum Vitae

Positions

University of Chicago

• Schmidt AI in Science Fellow, Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, 2023 – 2026.
• Research Affiliate, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

Leadership

• Convener of Future Circular Collider Physics Group on QCD and photon-photon physics, since 2026.
• Convener of LHC Physics Center Task Force on Strong Coupling From Event Shapes, since 2026.
• Expert contact for ATLAS data preparation and pileup profile creation, since 2025.
• Expert contact for ATLAS New Small Wheel Detectors data taking, 2025.
• Analysis contact for ATLAS model-agnostic BSM searches in multijet final states, since 2024.
• Creator and convener of FNAL Emerging Technologies SmartPixel chip hardware group, since 2024.
• Analysis contact for ATLAS observation of tt̄ production in PbPb collisions, 2023 – 2024.
• Expert contact for ATLAS New Small Wheel Detectors first data taking, 2021 – 2022.
• Co-lead for ATLAS NSW Micromegas Trigger commissioning at CERN, 2020 – 2022.

Affiliations

• Founding Member, Electron-Positron Alliance, since 2025. Collection and analysis of archived e+e− data to perform state-of-the-art measurements using modern theoretical and experimental methods.
• Member, SmartPixel Collaboration (Fermilab), since 2023. Fermilab-led, multi-institutional consortium developing on-chip ML for data reduction at the source to overcome bandwidth limits for hybrid-bonded pixel sensor detectors.
• Member, ATLAS Collaboration (CERN), since 2019. General-purpose LHC experiment at CERN using precision measurements to explore fundamental questions about the building blocks of matter and the forces of nature.

Education

Harvard

• Harvard University, 2019 – 2023
  • Ph.D. Physics, "Search for massive particles producing all hadronic final states in proton-proton collisions at the LHC with the ATLAS detector," 2023
  • M.A. Physics, 2020
  • Advisor: Professor John Huth

MIT

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2015 – 2019
  • B.S. Double Major Physics and Mathematics (4.8/5.0 GPA), 2019
  • Thesis: "Search for the Production of Quark-Gluon Plasma in e+e− Collisions at √s = 91 GeV with ALEPH archived Data"
  • Advisors: Professors Yen-Jie Lee and Jesse Thaler

Publications & Preprints

I am signing author of several collaborations and hence co-author of more than 400 published articles and papers. Below are research outputs to which I have made an important contribution.

• A model-agnostic search for multijet resonances in pp collisions at √s = 13.6 TeV with the ATLAS detector. The ATLAS Collaboration. In Internal Review, 2026.
• Long-range near-side correlation in e+e− with W-boson pair events at 183–209 GeV with ALEPH archived data. Sheng et al. In Internal Review, 2026.
• Reinterpretation of searches for supersymmetry models with long-lived particles using the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. The ATLAS Collaboration. 2603.15007
• Agentic AI – Physicist Collaboration in Experimental Particle Physics: A Proof-of-Concept Measurement with LEP Open Data. Badea et al. 2603.05735
• Measurement of energy-energy correlators and thrust in e+e− collisions at 91.2 GeV with DELPHI open data. Zhang et al. In Journal Submission. 2510.18762
• In-pixel integration of signal processing and AI/ML based data filtering for particle tracking detectors. Parpillon and Badea et al. In Journal Submission. 2510.07485
• Sensor co-design for smartpixels. Shekar and Mills et al. 2510.06588
• Unbinned measurement of thrust in e+e− collisions at √s = 91.2 GeV with archived ALEPH data. Badea et al. In Journal Submission. 2510.22038
• Energy Correlators from Partons to Hadrons: Unveiling the Dynamics of the Strong Interactions with Archival ALEPH Data. Bossi et al. In Journal Submission. 2511.00149
• Intelligent pixel detectors: towards a radiation hard ASIC with on-chip machine learning in 28nm CMOS. Badea et al. PoS ICHEP2024. 2410.02945
• Observation of tt̄ production in Pb+Pb collisions at √s_NN = 5.02 TeV with the ATLAS detector. The ATLAS Collaboration. PRL Editor's Suggestion. 2411.10186, CERN Briefing, ATLAS Briefing, ATLAS Video, APS Viewpoint, Nature Highlight, Physics World
• Smart Pixels: In-pixel AI for on-sensor data filtering. Parpillon et al. IEEE NSS MIC RSTD 2024. 2406.14860
• The quest to discover supersymmetry at the ATLAS experiment. The ATLAS Collaboration. Physics Reports. 2403.02455
• The ATLAS Trigger System for LHC Run 3 and Trigger performance in 2022. The ATLAS Collaboration. JINST. 2401.06630
• A data-driven and model-agnostic approach to solving combinatorial assignment problems in searches for new physics. Badea and Berlingen. PRD. 2309.05728
• A search for R-parity-violating supersymmetry in final states containing many jets in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector. The ATLAS Collaboration. JHEP. 2401.16333, ATLAS Briefing
• The ATLAS Experiment at the CERN LHC: A Description of the Detector Configuration for Run 3. The ATLAS Collaboration. JINST. 2305.16623
• The New Small Wheel Electronics. Iakovidis et al. JINST. 2303.12571
• Long-range near-side correlation in e+e− collisions at √s = 189–209 GeV with ALEPH archived data. Chen et al. PLB. 2312.05084
• Jet energy spectrum and substructure in e+e− collisions at √s = 91 GeV with ALEPH archived data. Chen et al. JHEP. 2111.09914
• Solving Combinatorial Problems at Particle Colliders Using Machine Learning. Badea et al. PRD. 2201.02205
• Measurements of two-particle correlations in e+e− collisions at √s = 91 GeV with ALEPH archived data. Badea et al. PRL. 1906.00489

Presentations

Invited

• New Measurements with the LEP Archived Datasets. AGH Krakow Seminarium HEP, Krakow, 2025.
• Measurements of Hadronic Final States in LEP Archived Data. Workshop on The Strong Coupling Constant α_S, Aussois, 2025.
• New Measurements with the LEP Archived Datasets. CERN FCC-ee Group Seminar, Geneva, 2025.
• Unbinned Measurement of Thrust in e+e− ALEPH Archived Data. Strong Coupling from Thrust at Lepton Colliders, Geneva, 2025.
• In-pixel integration of signal processing and machine learning based data filtering for particle tracking detectors. Machine Learning for the Front End Workshop, Virtual, 2025.
• Probing High Multiplicity Hadronic Systems for New Insights into Fundamental Physics. MIT LNS Seminar, Boston, 2025.
• Inter-Experimental Physics of R-Parity Violating Multi-Jet Signatures. CERN Collider Cross Talk, Geneva, 2024.
• Towards a Signature Driven Search Program at the LHC. University of Tennessee Seminar, Knoxville, 2024.
• Exploring the Hadronic Landscape from Model Dependent to Independent Searches. Korea Institute for Advanced Study, Virtual, 2024.
• The World of Open Data from LEP. Snowmass Computational Frontier, Virtual, 2020.
• QCD Measurements in LEP Data, Lessons for FCC-ee. 4th FCC Physics Workshop, Virtual, 2020.

Major Conferences

• Intelligent Pixel Detectors: Towards a Radiation Hard ASIC with On-Chip Machine Learning in 28nm CMOS. 42nd ICHEP, Prague, 2024.
• Exploring Hadronic Landscapes, a Novel Search in pp Multi-Jet Events in ATLAS. 58th Rencontres de Moriond on Electroweak Physics, La Thuile, 2024.
• Multi-Differential and Unbinned Measurements of Hadronic Event Shapes in e+e− Collisions at √s = 91 GeV from ALEPH archived data. 40th ICHEP, Virtual, 2020.
• Long-Range Angular Correlations of Charged Particles in High Multiplicity e+e− Collisions using Archived Data from the ALEPH detector at LEP. 39th ICHEP, Seoul, 2018.
• Studies of High Multiplicity e+e− Collisions using ALEPH Archived Data. 27th Quark Matter Conference, Venice, 2018.

Workshops

• Unbinned measurement of thrust in e+e− ALEPH archived data. BOOST 2025, Providence, 2025.
• ASIC R&D for future trackers. UChicago DSI Research Day, Chicago, 2024.
• ASIC R&D for future trackers. MuC Annual Meeting, Geneva, 2024.
• A data-driven and model-agnostic approach to solving combinatorial assignment problems in searches for new physics. 6th CERN Machine Learning Workshop, Geneva, 2024.
• Discovering new physics in hadronic final states of particle collisions. Schmidt Future Workshop, Lake Geneva, 2024.
• Tackling the permutation nightmare: ML for event reconstruction in all-hadronic events. 5th ATLAS Machine Learning Workshop, Virtual, 2021.
• Multi-Differential and Unbinned Measurements of Hadronic Event Shapes in e+e− Collisions at 91 GeV from ALEPH Open Data. BOOST 2020, Virtual, 2020.
• Measurements of two-particle correlations in e+e− collisions at 91 GeV with ALEPH archived data. JETSCAPE 2019, College Station, 2019.

CERN Internal

• Analysis Approval for tt̄ in PbPb Collisions. Top and Heavy Ion Group Plenary, CERN, 2024.
• Paper Approval for RPV Multijet Run 2 Analysis. Paper Publication Presentation, CERN, 2023.
• Testing the New Small Wheel Micromegas Trigger with Cosmic Ray Muons. Muon Week, CERN, 2021.
• New Small Wheel Micromegas Cosmic Ray Muon Tests and Trigger Algorithm. New Small Wheel General, CERN, 2021.
• New Small Wheel Micromegas Trigger Integration in BB5. Muon Week, CERN, 2021.
• New Small Wheel Micromegas Wedge Integration. Muon Week, CERN, 2020.
• New Small Wheel Micromegas Trigger Connectivity Tests. New Small Wheel Project Readiness Review, CERN, 2020.

Honors

• Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, with ATLAS Experiment, 2025. To the ATLAS, CMS, ALICE and LHCb Collaborations at CERN's LHC.
• Singapore Global Young Scientist Summit Attendee, 2025. Selected among top young researchers to explore emerging trends in science.
• Schmidt AI in Science Fellowship, University of Chicago, 2023 – 2026. Research fellowship to pursue new AI+Science research directions.
• Stanford Science Fellowship, declined, 2025. Research fellowship to pursue new interdisciplinary research directions.
• Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship, Harvard, 2021 – 2022. Selected by committee for full funding for on-site research at CERN.
• Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, Harvard, 2020. Selected for outstanding teaching in Harvard Physics 145 on elementary particle physics.
• Graduate Prize Fellowship, Harvard, 2019 – 2023. Selected by admission committee to the doctoral program for full Ph.D. funding.
• Malcolm Cotton Brown Outstanding Senior Experimentalist Award, MIT, 2019. Presented to a senior with outstanding academic record and research in experimental physics.
• MIT News Cover, 2019. Selected to be featured on the front of MIT news as an undergraduate.
• Rhodes Scholarship Finalist, Southern CA District, 2019. Selected from internal MIT competition and as a finalist for Southern CA district.
• Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, MIT, 2016 – 2019. Selected for research funding by the institute for work in the MIT heavy ion group.

Funding

• DOE-HEP Hardware-Aware AI, Co-PI, $350k, 2025. Fermilab News
• UChicago Research Computing Center Allocation, 110k CPU hours, 2024 – 2025.
• UChicago AI+Science Research Initiative Grant, $15k + GPU time, 2024 – 2025.
• Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellowship, $95k/year, 2023 – 2026.
• Stanford Science Fellowship, declined, $93k/year, 2023.
• Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship, $40k, 2021 – 2022.
• Harvard Graduate Prize Fellowship, full Ph.D. funding, 2019 – 2023.
• Quark Matter Young Scientist Grant, 2018.
• MIT UROP Grant, $15k/year, 2016 – 2019.

Teaching

• ATLAS Experiment Lecture Series, Geneva, 2025. Selected to present in the ATLAS experiment educational lecture series aimed at graduate students on the subject: An Introduction to Anomaly Detection.
• 94th Enrico Fermi Institute Arthur H. Compton Lectures, 2024. One early-career researcher per Autumn/Spring, nominated by the Institute Director, delivers eight public 1 hour lectures on frontier particle physics and AI concepts.
• Harvard Elementary Particle Physics (Physics 145), 2020. Teaching assistant, recitation instructor, and course co-designer for upper level undergraduate course on elementary particles.

Research Mentorship

• Thomas Critchley, Ph.D. student, CERN / University of Geneva, since 2025. ATLAS work designing transformer models trained with unsupervised/contrastive learning on pp collision data to reconstruct combinatorially complex multi-jet final states.
• Danush Shekar, Ph.D. student, University of Illinois Chicago, since 2024. ML/Silicon R&D with Fermilab and the SmartPixel Collaboration on the first prototype of in-pixel signal processing and AI/ML data reduction for hybrid-bonded pixel sensors.
• Takane Sano, Ph.D. student, University of Kyoto, since 2024. ATLAS physics on model-agnostic multi-jet searches in pp collisions for TeV-scale baryon number violation related to Sakharov conditions.
• Stefano Francellucci, Ph.D. student, University of Geneva, 2023 – 2024. ATLAS development of data scouting schemes for soft multijet trigger capabilities.
• Patrycja Potepa, Ph.D. student, AGH Krakow / University of Bonn, 2023 – 2024. ATLAS physics for first observation of tt̄ production in PbPb collisions.

Service

• Co-organizer, UChicago AI+Science Summer School, 2024 – 2025.
• Co-organizer, UChicago AI+Science Hackathon, 2024 – 2025.
• Physical Review D Referee, 2024.
• Schmidt Sciences Contributing Writer (e.g. ML Optimized Experiment Design), 2024.
• Harvard Science Contributing Writer (e.g. The Quark Soup), 2019.