Colloquium: Jahred Adelman, Northern Illinois University
It's an exciting time to be a particle physicist!
Event Details:
- Date: Tuesday, May 5, 2026
- Time: 3:45 - 4:45 PM
- Location: 1080 Physics Research Building
- Faculty Host: Chris Hill
Abstract
It's a rather exciting time to be a particle physicist! In this talk I'll explain the numerous reasons why our work is so fun and interesting (if challenging). I am motivated in particular by my work on the ATLAS experiment and searches for pair production of Higgs bosons. These analyses are continually beating expectations and narrowing the allowed phase space for the Higgs boson self-coupling, which offers opportunities to study the shape of the vacuum electroweak potential of the Universe. Looking ahead, future upgrades for the HL-LHC will provide almost brand-new detectors to pair with an order of magnitude increase in data set size, pointing towards the possibility of finding direct evidence for Higgs boson pair production during the HL-LHC. The computational problems brought by these massive future data sets and busy detectors are real, but the LHC experiments are hard at work to meet these challenges head on. Along the way, students will have significant opportunities to contribute both to detector construction and software efforts. I will highlight a joint NIU-UIC traineeship in computational particle physics that I lead for graduate students. In addition, the field of particle physics has definitively embraced the AI/ML revolution, both for the LHC and HL-LHC as well as for future experiments at the FCC, which provide unique and exciting R&D opportunities for hardware and also the chance to indirectly pin down the electroweak potential with even higher precision.
Bio
Jahred Adelman received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 2008 for his work on top quark mass measurements and the SVT track trigger at CDF after obtaining his Bachelor of Science from Brown University in 2002. After receiving his PhD he joined the ATLAS group at Yale University as a postdoc, where he worked on several searches for new physics, top quark cross section measurements and the Transition Region Tracker. In 2014, Adelman joined Northern Illinois University as a faculty mentor, where he is currently a professor in the department of physics. His research focus on using the ATLAS experiment and the Higgs sector to search for new physics, as well as training students in advanced software and computational tools for ATLAS and the next generation of particle physics experiments. Adelman currently serves as the Director of Graduate Studies in the department after serving earlier as Director of the university's Northern Illinois Center for Accelerator and Detector Development. He is a Level 2 manager for the US ATLAS upgrade project for all TDAQ efforts from both NSF and DOE and previously served as a Deputy L3 manager for the US ATLAS Event Filter Track upgrade as well as the US ATLAS Physics Support manager. In his spare time, Adelman enjoys scuba diving in warm water with his wife and making chocolate chip pancakes for his two kids.