Undergraduates
Test detector boards for CMS
In our HGCAL lab you would check hexaboards, the hexagonal readout boards for a new part of the CMS detector, inspecting them under a microscope camera and running electrical tests on their readout chips.
Join the lab
Build a detector. Search for new physics.
My group at The University of Alabama works on the CMS experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. We test hardware for the CMS detector upgrade, analyze LHC data, and build AI tools for particle physics. I’m recruiting graduate and undergraduate students.
ScrollFor students
What you would do
Graduate students
Analyze LHC data
Each graduate student in the group works on an analysis of CMS collision data, such as four-top production or a search for new heavy quarks, with tools that include machine learning and high-performance computing.
Why this group
Why join the group
- Your work goes into CMS. The hexaboards that undergraduates test in our lab go into the detector CMS will use at the High-Luminosity LHC.
- Students present their own work, with talks and posters at meetings of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2025 and 2026 and of its Southeastern Section (SESAPS) in 2024 and 2025.
- Undergraduate research can lead to graduate school here. One of our undergraduate researchers (2024 to 2026) received the 2024 US CMS HL‑LHC Detector Upgrade Essential Contribution Award and the 2026 Randall Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award, and has been a graduate student in the group since May 2026.
- An advisor active in CMS. I am a convener in the Top Quark Physics group, following about 20 analyses.
How to join
How to join the group
It starts with an email. Here is what to send, depending on where you are now.
UA undergraduates
Research in the HGCAL lab
Email me at eusai@ua.edu with:
- a few lines on what interests you
- your year and major
- the physics and programming courses you have taken
- your resume, if you have one
Prospective graduate students
A PhD in particle physics
- Email me at eusai@ua.edu to talk about projects in the group. Send your CV and a few lines on what interests you.
- Apply to the UA Physics PhD program.
- In your application, say that you are interested in particle physics and mention my name.
Postdocs and collaborators
Work with us
If you are interested in working together, email me your CV and a short description of your research interests.
My collaborations have also reached beyond experimental particle physics, into astrophysics, lattice gauge theory and genomics.
Interdisciplinary workResearch projects
Projects and skills
My group works at both ends of a particle physics result: testing detector parts at the lab bench, and turning collision data into results published in journals.
Detector hardware
Help build the CMS High Granularity Calorimeter
For the High-Luminosity LHC, CMS is replacing the calorimeters at both ends of its detector (the parts that measure particle energies) with the High Granularity Calorimeter (HGCAL). My lab, which I set up in 2024, performs quality control of its hexagonal readout boards, or hexaboards.
Skills you’ll learn
Data analysis
Measurements and searches at the LHC
Our current analyses of CMS collision data:
- Four-top production: four top quarks made in one collision. The top quark is the heaviest known elementary particle.
- Searches for new heavy quarks: pairs of T′ quarks, hypothetical heavy partners of the top quark.
- Quantum entanglement between particles made in the same collision, such as a top quark and its antiquark.
Skills you’ll learn
Machine learning
AI for particle physics
We use machine learning to improve how particles are reconstructed and how collision events are identified in CMS data. This builds on my earlier work on end-to-end deep learning with a team at Google Research, in which neural networks learn to identify particles directly from low-level detector data.
Skills you’ll learn
Computing
High-performance computing
Analyzing LHC data and training neural networks take a lot of computing power. I set up a high-performance computing cluster at UA dedicated to CMS data analysis and machine learning, in service since May 2024. You would learn to run your analysis and training jobs on it and to work with large data sets.
Skills you’ll learn
People
The group
Today the group has one postdoctoral researcher, three graduate students (I am their main advisor) and two undergraduate researchers.
Current members
-
Axel Perraguin
Postdoc · since Feb 2024
Construction of the CMS High Granularity Calorimeter, and a measurement of quantum entanglement in top quark–antiquark pairs that decay entirely into jets (the all-hadronic channel).
-
Guillermo Fidalgo
Graduate student · since Aug 2024
Four-top production in the single-lepton final state: collisions that leave one electron or muon.
-
Nathan Nguyen
Graduate student · since May 2026
Four-top production in the opposite-sign dilepton final state: two electrons or muons of opposite charge. Undergraduate researcher in the lab from 2024 to 2026.
-
Abhipsa Acharya
Graduate student · since May 2026
Search for pair-produced T′ quarks, hypothetical heavy partners of the top quark. Co-supervised research project in 2024–2025.
-
Chad Leino
Undergraduate · since 2024
Testing and inspection of HGCAL hexaboards.
-
Alejandro Jimenez Corella
Undergraduate · since 2026
Testing and inspection of HGCAL hexaboards.
Former students
- Phillip Chen, undergraduate researcher, HGCAL hexaboards (2024–2025)
- Max Pasulka, undergraduate researcher, HGCAL hexaboards (2025–2026)
Photos
Lab life
We work as a team, at the test bench and at the computing cluster, and we get together outside the lab too.
Interested? Send me an email.
Tell me a little about yourself and what draws you to particle physics, and we can set up a time to talk. You can write to me at eusai@ua.edu. My office is 321-A Gallalee Hall, in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.