Our Speakers for the 2018-19 School Year

Dr. Pedro Machado, Fermilab Theoretical Physicist

Dr. Machado is an associate scientist at Fermilab. He was born and raised in Brazil. He did his undergraduate work at Universidade Federal do Ceará (2007). He received his Ph.D. from University of São Paulo. Machado is a theoretical physicist working primarily in neutrino physics, and also in Higgs and dark matter physics. Before joining Fermilab, Dr. Machado spent few years in Madrid as a post-doctoral fellow, and as a Ph.D. student he visited Paris for a couple of years and Fermilab for six months. His work is focused on phenomenology: the interface between theory and experiment


Dr. Elliott McCrory, Fermilab Senior Scientist

Dr. McCrory is a Senior Scientist at Fermilab and has worked here since 1986. He received his PhD in particle physics from Duke University where he split his time among experiments at Fermilab, at SLAC and at Brookhaven Lab. He studied as an undergraduate at Tufts University.

McCrory was the head of the Summer Internships in Science and Technology (SIST, sist.fnal.gov) from 1993 to 2017 and the co-chair of SMP since January, 2016. He works in the Accelerator Division and in the Integrated Planning and Performance Management department in the Director’s Office.

Find out more about Dr. McCrory.


Prof. Dan Hooper, University of Chicago and Fermilab Senior Scientist

Dr. Hooper is a professor at the University of Chicago and a member of Astrophysics Department of the Particle Physics Division at Fermilab. He received his PhD from University of Wisconsin.
He has written two books:

  • Dark Cosmos: In Search of Our Universe’s Missing Mass and Energy
  • Nature’s Blueprint: Supersymmetry and the Search for a Unified Theory of Matter and Force

Hooper has been part of Saturday Morning Physics for ten years. When not interacting with young scientists, he tries to figure out ways for Earth-bound experimenters to detect dark matter and dark energy directly in an experiment.
In 2017, Prof. Hooper was elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS).
Read more about Dr. Hooper here: http://home.fnal.gov/~dhooper/


Dr. Javier Duarte, Fermilab Lederman Fellow

Dr. Duarte is a Lederman postdoctoral fellow at Fermilab and a member of the CMS Collaboration at CERN. He received his PhD in from Caltech on searches for supersymmetric particles and his BS in physics and math from MIT. Today, his research focuses on measuring the properties of the Higgs boson at high transverse momentum, searching for dark matter mediators, and applying machine learning methods to the trigger, reconstruction, and data acquisition. He is also deeply involved in Fermilab’s outreach efforts, such as Saturday Morning Physics. His hobbies include long distance running and playing soccer. During his lunch break, he likes to run around the Tevatron ring (4 miles) and he has also run around the LHC ring (17 miles)!

Learn more about Javier.


 Prof. Cecilia Gerber, University of Illinois at Chicago

Dr. Gerber is a Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Her research is centered on the experimental study of hadron collisions at the highest energies available. Her work involves the development of semiconductor detectors that precisely track the passage of charged particles and the elucidation of the characteristics of the production processes of top quarks and searches for new physics that decay preferentially to top quarks. She has been a member of the D0 collaboration at Fermilab since 1991, and of the CMS collaboration at CERN since 2000.

Dr. Gerber is an elected fellow of the American Physical Society, University of Illinois Scholar, Fellow of the UIC Honors College, and UIC 2011 Researcher of the Year. She received her PhD in Physics from the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina) in 1995, and was a research associate at Fermilab prior to joining the faculty at UIC in 2000.

Read more about Dr. Gerber here: http://gerber.people.uic.edu


Dr. Leo Aliaga, Fermilab Associate Scientist

Dr. Aliaga received his PhD from William and Mary in March, 2016, working on the MINERvA experiment under the supervision of Dr. Mike Kordosky.  His research has been focused on the NuMI flux determination primarily for MINERvA but also extending to other Fermilab neutrino detectors.  He is currently working on NOvA experiment.

Dr. Aliaga received the 2017 URA thesis award for his work on understanding the neutrino flux for the NuMI beam line.

Find out more about Dr. Aliaga.


Prof. Elisabeth Moyer, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Department of Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago

Dr. Moyer’s research interests fall in two main threads. The first includes the use of the isotopic composition of atmospheric water vapor as a tracer of convective processes, cirrus formation, and stratosphere-troposphere exchange; and the design of spectroscopic techniques for in-situ trace gas measurements. The second includes climate (and human) response to greenhouse-gas forcing; development of tools for impacts assessment; statistical emulation of climate model output; and climate and energy policy evaluation.

Find out more about Dr. Moyer.


Ms. Cindy Joe, Fermilab Engineering Physicist

Ms. Joe started at Fermilab as an accelerator operator and has been subsequently promoted to Neutrino Division Operations Support Group Member to run the underground facility for MINERvA and NOvA experiments. She earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Reed College in Portland, OR.

Ms. Joe is deeply involved in the encouragement of young women to work in STEM fields.  She said, “I think the most lasting and effective way to reduce the difficulties women and other underrepresented groups face in STEM is to normalize their presence, and publicize their struggles.”

Find out more about Ms. Joe.

Ms. Joe gave a fantastic presentation on acceleration operation at Fermilab’s physics slam. Watch it now.


Dr. Ting Li, Fermilab Associate Scientist (Lederman Fellow)

Dr. Li is a Leon Lederman Fellow at the Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics. She received her PhD from Texas A&M University, where she worked in the Munnerlyn Astronomical Instrumentation Lab. She was undergraduate at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, with a major in Physics and a minor in Diplomacy.

Dr. Li is an observational astronomer as well as an instrument builder with scientific interests that include near-field cosmology, Galactic archaeology and metal-poor stars. Her current main work is to study the Milky Way halo substructures, including the stellar streams and dwarf galaxies.

Find out more about Ting.


Dr. Mandy Rominsky, Applications Physicist

Dr. Rominsky is the Test Beam Facility coordinator at Fermilab. She attended New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, where she earned a bachelor of science degree in physics, and the University of Oklahoma, where she earned a Ph.D in physics.

Find out more at energy.gov.


Dr. Tim Meyer, Fermilab Chief Operating Officer

Dr. Tim Meyer is the Chief Operating Officer of Fermilab. He is a member of the executive-leadership team and contributes in setting the direction of the laboratory, managing the 1,800 person workforce, guiding compliance and performance of the entire laboratory, and developing new partnerships and opportunities. Before coming to Fermilab, Dr. Meyer served as Head of Strategic Planning and Communications at TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics in Vancouver, Canada. Previously Meyer served as a Senior Program Officer at the U.S. National Academies, providing advice to the U.S. government on science and technology. He received several distinguish-serviced awards while at the U.S. National Academies.

Meyer earned his Ph.D. in experimental particle physics from Stanford University studying the nature and time-evolution of the bottom quark where he received both the Kirkpatrick Award as well as the Centennial Teaching Award. In 2011, Meyer was selected by Business in Vancouver as one of the Top 40 Professionals Under 40 years old.
When not working, Meyer reads pulp fiction on his Kindle, runs across the prairie, and follows his gourmet-chef wife and charming daughter around the kitchen to wash the dishes.