The CMS Collaboration announced the 2024 Young Researcher Prize winners during the opening plenary of December’s CMS Week: Silvio Donato, Kenneth Long, and Stella Orfanelli.
This annual award recognizes the exceptional contributions of young researchers to the CMS experiment. It celebrates their dedication, innovation, and significant impact on the field of particle physics. By honouring these talented individuals, the collaboration aims to inspire future generations of scientists to push the boundaries of knowledge.
Congratulations to the winners!
Silvio Donato
For his crucial and sustained contributions to the trigger group, especially related to tracking, vertexing, b-tagging and the analysis of the Higgs boson decaying into two muons or two b-quarks.
“My research focuses on studying the Higgs boson and the development and operation of the High-Level Trigger (HLT). I was lucky to join CMS as a master's student in 2012, during the exciting times of the Higgs boson discovery. Since then, I have dedicated my efforts to understanding whether this particle is exactly the boson predicted by the Standard Model, which I had just learned about in my university lectures, or something different.
A key part of this work involves studying the Higgs boson’s couplings with other fundamental particles. I have investigated its couplings to the bottom quark, top quark, and muon. So far, all measurements are consistent with the Standard Model, but their precision will be improved using Run-3 data and, later, with the Phase-2 CMS at the High-Luminosity LHC.
In parallel, I have worked extensively on the trigger system, particularly the HLT, which is a software-based system for selecting events. Over 99.9% of proton-proton collision data is not saved, and the trigger selects in real time which data to store. For this reason, I believe the trigger is crucial not only to take high-quality data but also in enabling the exploration of new physics phenomena beyond the reach of current triggers.
I have contributed to various aspects of the trigger system, including b-tagging and software development, and eventually as coordinator of the group during the start of Run-3.
The trigger system received significant upgrades for Run-3, including new selection criteria, improved detector reconstruction, and higher data rates. These improvements are enabling CMS to explore new physics regions, with new exciting results based on Run-3 data are expected to come soon!”
Kenneth Long
His crucial and sustained contributions to the precise measurement of W boson mass and development of the global event description.
“My research work is focused on enhancing measurements of known particles and their properties. By comparing high-accuracy theoretical predictions to our measurements, we can look for subtle hints of new phenomena that challenge our current models, perhaps from undiscovered particles that are too heavy to be produced at the LHC. For the past five years, my main focus has been the measurement of the mass of the W boson. Performing this measurement at the LHC is notoriously challenging and requires a deep understanding of many components: the CMS detector, the algorithms we use to reconstruct particles, and the theoretical predictions used to model proton-proton collisions. Making such measurements requires decoupling our understanding of these components from the effects of deviations in the W boson mass. I am motivated by this delicate interplay and the high stakes of pushing the boundaries of what we can achieve in our measurements. My work seeks to bring all of these components together while achieving the best performance possible from them. I am particularly involved in improving the use of theoretical predictions in our measurements and enhancing the performance of our particle reconstruction algorithms.”
Stella Orfanelli
Her crucial and sustained contributions to the Phase-2 inner tracker project, particularly her leadership in the development and implementation of the electronics, including the ASIC, serial powering, and full system integration.
“I joined the project of Phase-2 Tracker to work on the challenging upgrade of the electronics system of the Inner Tracker detector, the CMS system closest to the collision point. My research initially concentrated on the development of a serial powering system for the pixel modules, a scheme that has never been used before in a large-scale experiment. Working together with the ASIC designers of the RD53 collaboration, I have been validating successive generations of pixel readout ASICs and contributing to the development of testing tools and calibration procedures for the Tracker system’s data acquisition. In the past years, I have been coordinating the development of the Inner Tracker electronics system from the design, prototyping, and testing of its components to their production and integration in large scale system tests and the final detector. As the project enters its production phase, I focus on the preparation of the Inner Tracker Integration Facility at CERN, where the pixel barrel and the forward disks will be integrated before traveling to P5. I also contribute to R&D efforts exploring electronics technologies and system designs for future tracking detectors.”
