Dr. Conor Henderson, University of Alabama Department of Physics and Astronomy

Curriculum Vitae for Conor Henderson

Assistant Professor
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA.
Tel: (205) 348-8834
Email: conor.henderson@ua.edu

Previous Positions

2008 - 2010: CERN Fellow
CERN, PH Department
Geneva, CH-1211, Switzerland

2005 - 2008: Post-Doctoral Research Associate
Laboratory for Nuclear Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

Education

1999 - 2005: PhD, Relativistic Heavy-Ion Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Thesis: Identified Particle Transverse Momentum Distributions from Au+Au Collisions at 62.4 GeV per Nucleon Pair
Advisor: Prof Gunther M Roland

1995 - 1999: MSci, Physics and Applied Mathematics
Queen's University, Belfast, N Ireland.

Research Activities

With the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in CERN (2008 - present):

Search for high-mass diphoton resonances, seeking signs of physics beyond the Standard Model, such as warped extra dimensions
Co-convener of CMS working group on Exotica with High-pT Photons (Jan 2009 - Jan 2011).
Designed and implemented a novel trigger selection for very exotic events containing many soft photons
General searches for beyond-Standard Model physics with photon signatures
Internal review committee member for CMS analysis 'Model Unspecific Search for New Physics'
Co-coordinator for CMS High-Level Trigger Offline Data Quality Monitoring (Jan 2011 - present); Participation in High-Level Trigger operations (2009)

With the CDF experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron collider (2005 - 2008):

Analysis of high-pT data from proton-antiproton collisions, for a model-independent search for new physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. Unlike conventional new-physics searches, which focus on specific signatures of a particular models, this novel approach is the first attempt to make a global analysis of the CDF high-pT data, searching for any significant discrepancy with the Standard Model prediction.
Co-convener of the CDF Working Group on Very Exotic Phenomena (Sept 2007 - Sept 2008). Responsible for facilitating and reviewing CDF analyses investigating Standard Model extensions other than supersymmetry
Project Leader (May 2006-Aug 2008) for the CDF Event-Builder and Level 3 Trigger Hardware systems, the final stages in the CDF trigger and data acquisition system. Oversaw the final stages of the RunIIb Level3 upgrade, which expanded the computer network from 200 to 400 machines, for a total 2.4THz processing power. Increased data-taking efficiency through improved operating procedures and error-handling. Responsible for providing and coordinating 24/7 on-call support and expertise.
Served on internal review committees for several CDF papers on Higgs and Beyond-Standard Model searches
Linux system administrator for the MIT CDF computer cluster

With the PHOBOS experiment at the Brookhaven Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (2000 - 2005):

Analysis of pion, kaon and proton transverse momentum spectra from heavy-ion collisions at RHIC. Also contributed extensively to the analysis of unidentified charged hadron high-$p_T$ spectra and to measurements of antiparticle/particle ratios.
Development and maintenance of algorithms for finding particle tracks in the PHOBOS silicon spectrometer; development of software for combining PHOBOS spectrometer tracks and Time-of-Flight information.
Design and implementation of a high-level trigger system for selecting high-momentum tracks; VHDL programming for electronic logic devices.

Teaching

Courses taught:

Spring 2011 - PH 105, Introductory General Physics with Calculus I

Thesis committees:

MS committee member for Z Burell, 'Radiative Symmetry Breaking in the Supersymmetric Minimal B-L Extended Standard Model', May 2011

Graduate student supervision:

Spring 2011 to present - J Carson, 'Search for Exotic Physics with Photons at CMS'

Undergraduate research supervision at UA:

Fall 2011 - T Keele, 'Introduction to High-Energy Physics Research'
Fall 2011 - T Groover, 'Introduction to High-Energy Physics Research'
Summer 2011 - J Murray, 'Search for Exotic Photon Cloud Events with the CMS Detector'

Undergraduate students supervised as part of the CERN Summer Student programme (8-12 weeks each):

2010: D Hill, `Search for High-Mass Diphoton resonances with CMS Detector'
2010: M Ross-Lonergan, `Search for Technicolor in the Three Photon Final State with the CMS Detector'
2009: M Peruzzi, `Search for Randall-Sundrum Gravitons in the Diphoton Final State with the CMS Detector'

Attended American Association of Physics Teachers Workshop for New Physics Faculty, 27-30 June 2011.

Outreach Activities

Talks with high-school physics students at Lismore Comprehensive School, Craigavon, Northern Ireland (May 2008, September 2009)

Interview with local newspaper (Lurgan Mail, 1 October 2009)

Interviewed for Northern Ireland schools documentary films on CERN, and a career as a physicist (2010)

"Putting the Fizz Back Into Physics", article in Physics World magazine, September 1998.

Awards and Honors

2008-2010 CERN Research Fellowship

1999-2000 John F Kennedy Memorial Scholar at MIT

1999 John Geddes Prize for best Queen's University undergraduate physics research project

1999 Irish Physics Students Association Conference, Chairman and chief organizer

1998 Physics Society President, Queen's University, Belfast

Professional Organisations

Member, American Physical Society

Member, American Association of Physics Teachers

Associate Member, Institute of Physics (UK)

High Energy Physics Community Activities

Invited reviewer for:

Physics Letters B: Nuclear and Particle Physics
Physical Review D

Invited participant in workshop Les Houches Physics at TeV Colliders: Beyond the Standard Model, 17-26 June 2009, Les Houches, France.

Colloquia

Searching for Physics beyond the Standard Model at the Large Hadron Collider
University of Alabama-Huntsville Physics Department, 11 October 2011.

Searching for New Physics at the Large Hadron Collider
University of Alabama Physics Department, 29 March 2010

Seminars

Recent Results from CMS
University of Alabama, 8 April 2011

Searching for New Physics with Photons at the Large Hadron Collider
University of Bristol, 29 July 2010

Global Search for Physics Beyond the Standard Model
Glasgow University Physics Department, 7 January 2009

Results of a Global Search for New Physics with 2 fb^-1 at CDF

Fermilab `Wine and Cheese' Seminar, 30 May 2008
MIT Laboratory for Nuclear Science, 13 May 2008
Harvard University, 30 April 2008
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 14 April 2008

Results of a Global Search for New Physics with 1 fb^-1 at CDF

Argonne National Laboratory, 5 December 2007
University of Pennsylvania, 13 November 2007
Duke University, 30 October 2007
University of Wisconsin, Madison, 22 October 2007

Vista and Sleuth: Searching for New Physics at the Tevatron
Penn State University, 15 November 2006

Conference Talks

Global Search for New Physics at CDF
Plenary talk at Moriond QCD 2008, 8-15 March 2008, La Thuile, Italy.

Sleuth: Results of a Quasi-Model-Independent Search for New Physics in 1 fb-1 at CDF
Parallel talk at PHENO 2007, 7 May 2007, Madison, WI.

Vista: A New Method for an Inclusive Search of Tevatron RunII Data
Parallel talk at PHENO 2006, 15 May 2006, Madison, WI.

Charged Hadron p_T Spectra from Au+Au Collisions at 62.4 GeV
Parallel talk at APS Division of Nuclear Physics Meeting, 29 October 2004, Chicago, IL.

Charged Hadron pT Spectra from PHOBOS
Participant presentation at the 16th Summer School in Nuclear Physics, 13-25 June 2004, College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor, ME.

Strangeness Production in PHOBOS
Plenary talk at RHIC/AGS Users' Meeting 'Workshop on Strangeness and Exotica at RHIC', 14 May 2004, Brookhaven National Laboratory, NY.

Charged Hadron Transverse Momentum Distributions at High pT in Au+Au Collisions at 200 GeV
Parallel talk at APS Division of Nuclear Physics Meeting, 10 October 2002, Lansing, MI.

Measurement of Charged Antiparticle to Particle Ratios by the PHOBOS Detector
Parallel talk at American Physical Society April Meeting, 30 April 2001, Washington DC.

Publications as a Primary Author

An Exotic Photon Cloud Trigger for CMS
C. Henderson, Proceedings of the 2009 Les Houches Workshop on New Physics at the LHC, arXiv:1005.1229

Global Search for New Physics with 2.0/fb at CDF
T. Aaltonen et al (CDF Collaboration), Phys. Rev. D 79, 011101 (2009) (arXiv:0809.3781)

Results Of A Model-Independent Global Search For New Physics At CDF
C. Henderson for the CDF Collaboration, arXiv:0805.0742, proceedings of the XLIIIth Rencontres de Moriond: QCD and High-Energy Interactions 2008.

Model-Independent and Quasi-Model-Independent Search for New Physics at CDF
T. Aaltonen et al (CDF Collaboration), Phys. Rev. D 78, 012002 (2008) (arXiv:0712.1311)

Identified hadron transverse momentum spectra in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN)= 62.4 GeV
BB Back et al (PHOBOS Collaboration), Phys. Rev. C 75, 024910 (2007)

Centrality dependence of charged hadron transverse momentum spectra in Au+Au collisions from sqrt(s_NN) = 62.4 to 200 GeV
BB Back et al (PHOBOS Collaboration), Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 082304 (2005)

Centrality Dependence of the Charged Hadron Transverse Momentum Spectra in d+Au Collisions at sqrt(sNN)=200 GeV
BB Back et al (PHOBOS Collaboration), Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 072302 (2003)

Charged hadron transverse momentum distributions in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV
BB Back et al (PHOBOS Collaboration), Phys. Lett. B578, 297 (2004)

Ratios of charged particles to antiparticles near mid-rapidity in {Au+Au} collisions at sqrt(s_NN)= 130 GeV
BB Back et al (PHOBOS Collaboration), Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 102301 (2001)

"Putting the Fizz Back Into Physics"
C. Henderson, Physics World, Sept 1998.

Author on publications by the CMS collaboration since January 2010.

Author on publications by the CDF collaboration from summer 2006 to summer 2009.

Author on all publications by the PHOBOS collaboration since 2000.