I work for the Institute for High Energy Physics of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, but am based at CERN in Geneva where I am a member of
the CMS Collaboration. My career in high
energy physics started as a CERN summer student in 1982, at the ISOLDE experiment. In the same year I got
the opportunity to work at the UA1 experiment, where the W and Z
were discovered in 1983. I obtained a CERN fellowship during the
years 1986-1987, during which I worked at UA1 under the leadership
of Carlo Rubbia, who had shared the 1984
Nobel Prize for physics
with Simon van der Meer. After UA1 I participated in the CP-violation experiment
NA48, where I was leader of the Austrian
group. To prepare for physics at the Large Hadron Collider, I
joined RD5, a research and development experiment dedicated to
muon identification and triggering in a high magnetic field. RD5
served as a prototype for CMS, which is designed to answer
fundamental questions in physics. I am one of the CMS founding
members, and participated in the discovery of the Higgs boson
in 2012. My CMS activities include management, physics analysis,
and triggering. My most
important positions in this experiment were Collaboration Board
Chairperson and Deputy Trigger Project Manager. I have represented
the Vienna Institute for High Energy Physics in CMS for many years and lead the
Austrian
CMS-Trigger
project group since 1993.
As group leader I am a member of the Institute's Executive Board.
Among my most important
contributions to CMS are the idea for allowing analysis-like
trigger algorithms already at the first level, which can be
particularly useful for high-rate processes, calibration and
testing, the idea for the Trigger
Supervisor, which
is an on-line software system that sets up, controls and monitors
the entire level-1 trigger, and securing the Tier-2 centre in
Austria for analyzing ATLAS and CMS data on the GRID. My former
student Ildefons Magrans de Abril received a special award for the
best CMS technological thesis in 2008 for his implementation of
the Trigger Supervisor. A second student, Valentin Knünz, received
the 2015 CMS Thesis Award for his measurement of quarkonium
polarization. Other work with students has focused on long-lived
particles and supersymmetric top quarks.
I have served as a referee for
the European Commission, Austrian, U.S., European and Asian
science funding agencies, universities, the LHC experiments CMS
and TOTEM, and scientific journals such as Nature Reviews Physics,
the New Journal of Physics, IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science,
or Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A. I have
been one of the Austrian representatives in Plenary ECFA, the European Committee for Future
Accelerators, and from 2012 to 2019 I was the Austrian
representative in Restricted ECFA (RECFA). I was also appointed to
the High Energy
Particle Physics Board of the European Physical Society.
I received a few prizes and distinctions. The first
one was the "sub
auspiciis" PhD graduation in 1986, the highest possible distinction for academic
achievements for a doctoral degree in Austria. The degree is
awarded by the Austrian President. The Erich-Schmid-Prize was awarded to me in 1991 for
contributions to experimental high energy physics. In
January 2010 I became FEMtech Expert of the Month, in the
framework of an initiative of the Austrian Ministry for
Transport, Innovation and Technology to promote women in
research and technology. In Dec. 2010 I was elected one of the
top women 2010 by the Austrian WOMAN magazine, and in Dec. 2011 I was chosen to
be one of the leading ladies 2011 by the magazine "Austrian
Business Woman". I was also nominated to AcademiaNet,
founded by he Robert Bosch foundation, with the purpose to
promote excellent female researchers.
Outreach activities also take up a fraction
of my time. Numerous media contributions (articles in newspapers,
magazines, multi-media publications and brochures, TV, radio and
press interviews, participation in TV documentaries, films, and
debates), lectures for the general public and schools, are among
the portfolio. On several occasions I had the opportunity to show
CMS to Austrian Ministers of Research and the current and past
President of the Republic.
Current responsibilities linked to the CMS experiment: Leader of the Austrian CMS Trigger Group Deputy Team
Leader of the Austrian CMS Group
Previous responsibilities: Editorial
Board Member
of the EPS
Grand
Challenges -
Physics for
Society in the
Horizon 2050
project Faculty
member of FWF Doctoral Programme
Particles and
Interactions
(2014 - 2023) Chairperson
of the CMS
Collaboration
Board (Sep. 2021
- Aug. 2023)
Chairperson on
the CMS Task
Force on
Diversity and
Inclusion (2020
- 2021)
Deputy Chairperson
of the CMS
Publications
Committee (2017
- 2021) Regional
Representative for Other
CERN Member States in the
CMS Management Board ((2018 -
2020, July 2003 - June
2005) Member of
the High Energy and Particle Physics
Board of the European Physical Society EPS-HEPP
(2012 - 2019) Member
of the
International
Origanizing
Committee of
the EPS-HEP
Conferences in
Vienna (2015), Venice (2017), and Ghent (2019) Austrian
Representative in RECFA (Restricted
ECFA) (2012 - 2017) Member
of Plenary ECFA
(European Committee for Future
Accelerators) (2006 - 2017) Deputy Chair of the Board
of Trustees of Carinthia
University of Applied Sciences
(2014 - 2019) Member
of the CMS Thesis Awards
Committee Link
person to the CMS Funding
Agencies for Austria
Representative for Austria in
the CMS Finance Board Representative
for Austria in the CERN CMS
Resources Review Board Member
of the CMS Publications Committee Exotica
subgroup (2012 - 2016, 2005 - 2006) Member
of the CMS
Collaboration
Board Advisory
Group Chairperson
of the CMS Collaboration Board (Jan. 2014 - June
2014) Deputy Chairperson of the CMS
Collaboration Board (Jan. 2013 - Dec. 2013) Team Leader of the Austrian CMS group
(Nov. 1993 - Dec. 2013) Representative for
Austria in the CMS Collaboration Board (Nov.
1993 - Dec. 2013) Representative
on a case-by-case basis for the Austrian
Federal Ministry of Science and
Research in the CERN CMS
Resources Review Board Member of the CMS Authorship Board (2009 -
2012) Institution Board Chair for Trigger and Data Acquisition
(July 2009 - Dec. 2011) CMS
Deputy Trigger Project Manager (2007-2011) Member of the WLCG (Worldwide LHC
Computing Grid) Collaboration Board Member of the Advisory Board to
the CMS Collaboration Board 2009-2010 Member of CMS
Trigger and Data Acquisition Editorial Board (Jan. 2003 - Dec.
2009) Chair of the
Election Committee for the Election of the CMS Spokesperson
2010-2012 Member of the Scientific
Committee of
EUROCON2007 (Jan. 2007 - Oct. 2007) Member of the Programme
Committee for Physics at LHC 2006 Austrian
Project Leader for Austro-Spanish collaboration project Acciones Integradas 21/2004
(Jan. 2004 - Dec. 2005) Co-chair
of Organizing Committee and Member of Programme Committee for
Physics at LHC 2004 Project Leader
for project "Erprobung neuer Ideen zum Triggern bei hohen
Energien" of the Jubilee Fund of the City of Vienna (Nov. 2002 - June 2003) Chair of the CMS Committee for
the Nomination of Speakers to Conferences (Jan. 1998 – Dec.
2001) Austrian
Project Leader for Austro-Hungarian collaboration project A28/2000 (Jan. 2000 - Dec. 2001) Resources Manager for the CMS
Muon Project (Sep. 1994 – June 1998)
Team Leader of the Austrian RD5 group (Nov. 1990 - Dec. 1995)
Privately I am interested in music
and amateur radio. I play the piano and the cello. I am a member
of the Orchestre du Pays de Gex and the Orchestre de Chambre de
Versoix.
I hold amateur radio licences of the highest class in France
(F5NYQ), the US (NX1O) and in Switzerland (ex HB9CUY, callsign
currently not activated). I especially enjoy contacts in Morse
code. I have participated in many contest activities and
expeditions all over the world, for example in Morocco (CQ
Worldwide CW Contest CN2WW), Madeira, Jersey, the US (World Radio
Sport Championship in Seattle, 1990), Fiji (3D2EW), Western Samoa
(5W1YL), Tahiti (FO/HB9CUY/p), South Cook Islands (ZK1XH), Aruba
(P40YL), Cocos Keeling Islands (VK9CL), New Zealand (ZL0AAF) and
other countries. I have been long-time president of CERN's Amateur Radio Club
F6KAR. I have also been the Secretary of the International Amateur
Radio Club 4U1ITU at the International
Telecommunications Union in Geneva for some years.
In November 2005 I participated in setting up an Amateur Radio
Contact between the International Space Station (ISS) and CERN on
Space Day during the festival Science on Stage. The contact was
established in the framework of the ARISS
(Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) program, in
collaboration with the European Space Agency ESA.
College students were able to put questions to the astronaut Bill
McArthur KC5ARC. The contact was made from the Amateur Radio
Station NN1SS at the Goddard Space Flight Centre to the Amateur
Radio Station NA1SS located on the Zarya module of the Space
Station. A direct contact would have in principle been possible
from CERN's Amateur Radio Club Station,
but the passage of ISS above CERN would not have coincided with
the schedule of the Space Day. Further details and an audio
recording may be found here.
