Liana Rae Simpson

Liana Simpson is a postdoctoral researcher working within the Argonne High Energy Physics (HEP) ATLAS group on silicon detector production for the Inner Tracking Detector (ITk). This all-silicon detector subsystem is a critical Phase II upgrade portion for the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC), designed to provide excellent spatial resolution and radiation-hardness for precision tracking in high luminosity, high pileup environments.

Liana’s Ph.D. physics analysis has spanned precision measurements in the Higgs sector and searches for physics beyond the Standard Model, including cross-section measurements of vector boson scattering in the ZZ(jj) final state and Higgs-to-invisible searches. Additional contributions include extensive work on the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer, specializing in drift tube detector construction at the University of Michigan as a graduate student and in Muon Spectrometer optical alignment systems at Brandeis University as an undergraduate student.

At Argonne, Liana is supporting ITk construction while developing a focus on physics studies that will allow for creative leveraging of instrumentation expertise, balanced with a current WWW measurement physics commitment. This continues an ongoing effort to understand the electroweak sector and its possible role in hosting new physics processes through the consequences of symmetry breaking.

For Liana, a researcher driven by a strong interest in fundamental research and associated philosophy, collaborative environments like the ATLAS experiment serve as excellent opportunities to advance high-quality instrumentation that upholds the principles of precision and reliability in experimental physics.