Aida X El-Khadra

Aida X El-Khadra
Aida X El-Khadra

Primary Research Area

  • High Energy Physics
Professor
(217) 333-5026
429 Loomis Laboratory

Biography

Professor Aida El-Khadra received her PhD. in 1989 from the University of California, Los Angeles, after receiving her diplom from Freie Universitaet, Berlin, Germany. She held postdoctoral research appointments at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and the Ohio State Univerity before joining the Illinois faculty in 1995. El-Khadra is a fellow of the American Physical Society, a recipient of the Department of Energy's Outstanding Junior Investigator Award, and a Sloan foundation fellow. In addition to a number of other research and teaching awards she has also been named a Fermilab Distinguished Scholar. Service highlights include membership on the APS Division of Particles and Fields (DPF) executive committee (an elected position), APS fellowship committees, chair of the USQCD Scientific Program Committee and member of the USQCD Executive Committee, co-chair of the Muon g-2 Theory Initiative, as well as organizing and advisory committees for international workshops and conferences.

Prof. El-Khadra's area of research is theoretical particle physics. Her research focuses on the application of lattice Quantum Chromodynamics (also called the strong interactions) to phenomenologically interesting processes in flavor physics, which are relevant to the experimental effort at the so-called intensity frontier. She is a leader of one of the most successful collaborations working in Lattice Field Theory in the world, the Fermilab Lattice collaboration. Select highlights include the first quantitative determination of the the strong coupling from lattice QCD, a new formulation of heavy quarks on the lattice that is the foundation of many important, phenomenologically relevant lattice calculations, for example, predictions of the D and Ds meson decay constants, predictions of the shape of the semileptonic D-meson form factors, and lattice calculations of semileptonic B-meson form factors that yield the most precise determinations of the associated CKM matrix elements, Vcb and Vub to date. Other recent highlights are the most precise calculations of (a) the semileptonic Kaon form factor which improves upon our knowledge of the CKM matrix element Vus, (b) the complete set of semileptonic form factors for B-meson decays to pions, and kaons, yielding new interesting constraints on models of new physics, (c) the complete set of the neutral B and Bs meson mixing matrix elements, yielding the best-to-date constraints on Vtd, Vts, and their ratio, and (d) the first precise calculation of the strong isospin breaking corrections to the hadronic vacuum polarization contribution to the muon 's anomalous magnetic moment.

Academic Positions

  • Professor, UIUC, August 2008-present
  • Associate Professor, UIUC, May 2001-August 2008
  • Assistant Professor, UIUC, August 1995-May 2001

Chapters in Books

Selected Articles in Journals

Articles in Conference Proceedings

Teaching Honors

  • Collins Award for Innovative Teaching, College of Engineering, University of Illinois (2002)

Research Honors

  • Simons Fellow in Theoretical Physics, Simons Foundation (2022)
  • Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (2021)
  • Associate, Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois (2019)
  • Distinguished Scholar, Fermilab (2016)
  • Fellow, American Physical Society (2011)
  • Associate, Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois (2007)
  • Frontier Fellow, Fermilab (2002)
  • Beckman Fellow, Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois (1998)
  • Xerox Award for Faculty Research, College of Engineering, University of Illinois (1998)
  • Fellow, A. P. Sloan Foundation (1997)
  • Outstanding Junior Investigator Award, Department of Energy (1996)
  • Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes (1988)

Recent Courses Taught

  • PHYS 123 - Physics Made Easy
  • PHYS 211 - University Physics: Mechanics
  • PHYS 213 - Univ Physics: Thermal Physics
  • PHYS 214 - Univ Physics: Quantum Physics
  • PHYS 470 - Subatomic Physics

Semesters Ranked Excellent Teacher by Students

SemesterCourseOutstanding
Fall 2018PHYS 213