Uncovering new phenomena through rare decays

I am an experimental particle physicist specialised in the field of quark-flavour physics. I test the Standard Model of particle physics to its limits by studying rare decays of heavy hadrons. My goal is to uncover new phenomena that can reveal effects of physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM).

I design innovative analysis techniques to search for extremely rare heavy-hadron decays that are highly sensitive to BSM phenomena. I also make precision measurements of particle-decay properties, including angular and charge-parity asymmetries as well as decay rates of rare B-meson decays. Within the LHCb collaboration, I am convenor of the Very Rare Decays working group.

I am one of the main developers of the EvtGen simulation software, an essential tool for many studies of hadron decays in multiple particle-physics experiments. I study and implement new alternatives for the simulation of particle processes such as final-state photon radiation and tau-lepton decays and contribute to the modernisation of the software core. Within my simulation work, I contribute to the national software and infrastructure for high energy physics (SWIFTHEP) at the UK and collaborate with Research Software Engineers at Warwick.

During my PhD thesis, I developed the first flavour tagging algorithm at the Belle II experiment. This is an essential analysis tool for many measurements involving the time evolution of the flavour of neutral B mesons. The algorithm forms the basis of a new algorithm that achieves a world record for flavour tagging performance. After my PhD, I contributed to the commissioning of early data and first Belle II physics analyses, which delivered the first observations of charmless B-decays and the
first measurements of decay rates and charge-parity asymmetries of these decays at Belle II.