Michael Wallbank Email & Phone Number

United Kingdom

Batavia, Illinois, United States

Currently employed as an Associate Scientist in the Accelerator Research Division within the Accelerator Directorate at Fermilab. I am contributing to the experimental program at the FAST/IOTA facility (fast.fnal.gov), including the operations of the IOTA storage ring. I am involved in the R&D program for advanced beam cooling techniques, specifically Optical Stochastic Cooling, which was demonstrated for the first time at the IOTA facility in 2021.

Batavia, Illinois, United States

During my ~5 years as a postdoc at the University of Cincinnati, I was based full time at Fermilab and contributed to the NOvA and DUNE neutrino experiments.I was a leader of the NOvA Test Beam program for the duration of my time at Cincinnati, initially leading the construction, commissioning and operation of the experiment and latterly heading up the analysis working group tasked with understanding and interpreting the data in the context of NOvA. I held many positions, including Test Beam Project Co-Leader, Run Coordinator, Accelerator Division Interface Group Leader, and Test Beam Analysis Group Co-Leader. I was involved in all aspects of the experiment and gained significant further experience in small-scale high-energy physics experiments, such as detector design, construction and commissioning, data acquisition, controls systems and high energy beamlines. I additionally developed the full end-to-end software stack, from the online DAQ systems, offline processing and analysis frameworks, including integrating the G4beamline simulation package. I coordinated and led the operations for three of the four operational periods, retiring for the fourth to lead the subsequent analysis efforts.Additionally on NOvA I led the world's first-ever search for sterile neutrino oscillations using a long-baseline antineutrino beam. We produced very competitive results and I presented the results in many high-profile conferences and seminars, and authored the paper in Physical Review Letters.On DUNE, I maintained my presence through my work in various analysis groups. I worked on the first search for neutrino trident events in the LAr near detector, which was published as a limited-authorship paper in PRD. I additionally migrated the advanced analysis tools used on NOvA for sterile neutrino analyses.

Sheffield, England, United Kingdom

Obtained a Ph.D. in experimental particle physics, specifically specializing in the sub-field of neutrinos. During my Ph.D., I contributed to the T2K experiment in Japan, and the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) in the U.S.I spent a year and a half of my Ph.D. living and working at Fermilab, in Batavia IL, from November 2014 through March 2016.I initially worked on improving the low energy reconstruction of data collected by the electromagnetic calorimeter sub-detectors in the T2K near detector, ND280; I developed and implemented a new software framework which showed improved reconstruction for few-hit events.Upon joining LBNE, later to be subsumed by the new DUNE experiment, I moved to Fermilab and contributed to the construction, commissioning, operation and data analysis of the 35-ton prototype, the first integrated test of all the planned technologies for the eventual DUNE far detector. I was integral to the 35-ton experiment, which took data from January to March 2016. I additionally ported my reconstruction interests to the challenging event topologies of LArTPCs, and developed the first framework for reconstructing and analyzing showering particles in the shared LArSoft software toolkit.

Warwick, England, United Kingdom

Undertook a research program during my Masters year in the Elementary Particle Physics group within the Department of Physics at the University of Warwick. My research was specifically focussed on the understanding of neutrino cross-sections, using Monte Carlo simulation and data from the T2K experiment in Japan. I developed an analysis of neutral current elastic events at the near detector, ND280, involving an event selection, characterization and differential cross-section fitting procedure. This was the first analysis of this channel with T2K data and served as a feasibility study for a complete analysis.

Surface Science Department, University Of Liverpool

Completed a summer research project in the Surface Science Department of the University of Liverpool, under the supervision of Dr Tim Veal. The project involved the study of III-V semiconductors, particularly gallium antimonide (GaSb) and gallium nitride antimonide (GaNSb), investigating how varying concentrations of nitrogen in the latter affects the band-gap of the semiconductor. The project was mainly computational and involved simulating the band structure of the compounds, with the intention of subsequently measuring various transport properties of the material using hall effect techniques. Unfortunately, general experimental physics fun restricted the project to solely computation. Nevertheless, I gained invaluable experience; I developed many computational and problem solving skills, and gained first-hand research experience in a world-leading department.

Doctor Of Philosophy - Phd, Elementary Particle Physics

Thesis: Reconstruction and Analysis for the DUNE 35-ton Liquid Argon Prototype. Supervisor: Prof. Lee Thompson

Physics (Bsc Mphys), Physics, First Class

Degree: Bachelor of Science, Master of Physics (BSc MPhys) Masters project: Detection of Neutral Current Elastic Interactions of Neutrinos.

Education record

Attended St Mary's College school and sixth-form, leaving with the following A-levels: Mathematics (A) Further Mathematics (A) Physics (A).