Current/Past Grainger Fellows

Keith McBride

Ph.D. Physics, Ohio State University, 2021

My research interests include the astrophysical sources of high-energy particles and the processes that govern their propagation. I am a member of multiple astroparticle physics projects, including the High Energy Light Isotope eXperiment (HELIX), a magnet spectrometer payload, and the focus of my Ph.D. at Ohio State. HELIX will measure the mass of cosmic-ray nuclei, especially Beryllium, in the energy range of 1 GeV/n to 10 GeV/n to deepen our understanding of cosmic ray propagation in the Milky Way. Another project I contribute to is the Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations (PUEO), a neutrino-hunting array of antennas. The PUEO project aims to detect neutrinos at the highest energy (> 10 PeV) that are the byproducts of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (>1 EeV). PUEO's measurements will provide new insights into the most energetic objects in the universe. Both of these projects are NASA balloon-borne experiments.

Philipp Windischhofer

Ph.D., The University of Oxford, 2022

Philipp is an experimental particle physicist by training and an engineer at heart. He received his PhD from Oxford, where he explored the phenomenal power of physics for the construction of particle detectors and studied the simplest object possible in nature with data from the Large Hadron Collider.

Philipp is fascinated by synergetic connections between different branches of science. In his cross-cutting work as a Grainger Fellow, he connects transportation theory to collider physics, characterizes the self-interaction of the Higgs boson as a member of the ATLAS Collaboration, and leverages the laws of electromagnetism to detect neutrinos from deep space within the Antarctic ice.

Chris Wang

Ph.D, Yale University, 2022

Chris received his PhD in Physics from Yale University, where he was a part of the superconducting quantum computing community in the Yale Quantum Institute led by Robert Schoelkopf. His PhD research focused on engineering and implementing bosonic quantum simulators for molecular dynamics. As a Grainger Fellow, he is developing techniques for controlling single electrons floating near the surface of superfluid helium, which holds promise as an exciting new hybrid platform for quantum computation, simulation, and sensing.

Jesse Liu

Ph.D., University of Oxford, 2019

Jesse received his Ph.D. in 2019 from the University of Oxford, where he led searches for dark matter and supersymmetric partners of the Higgs boson in the ATLAS Collaboration. He was also responsible for radiation damage studies of the silicon strip detector. As a Grainger Fellow at Chicago, he is exploring new directions to study light turning into matter–antimatter at the Large Hadron Collider and instrumentation for axion dark matter detection experiments.

Outside physics, you can find Jesse exploring his new home of Chicago, taking pictures of food, walks in the park, as well as enjoying a good cup of tea.

Danielle Norcini

Ph.D., Yale University, 2019

Danielle Norcini received her Ph.D. from the Wright Laboratory at Yale University. She helped lead the R&D and construction of the PROSPECT detector to measure neutrinos at very short distances from the High Flux Isotope Reactor in Oak Ridge, TN. Her thesis details a search for sterile neutrino oscillations and the world-leading measurement of the uranium-235 antineutrino energy spectrum. As a KICP and Grainger fellow, she is developing low-threshold detectors to search for dark matter and measure neutrino properties.

Outside the lab, you can find Danielle at home experimenting with baking ratios,& reading interior design blogs, or by the lake playing with her dog Kip.

Severine Atis

Ph.D., Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 2013

Past Fellows