Benjamin Hooberman

Primary Research Area
High Energy Physics

Associate Professor

(217) 318-1881

benhoob@illinois.edu

413 Loomis Laboratory

For More Information

University of Illinois ATLAS Group

Education

BA in Physics, Columbia University, 2005
MSc in Physics, University of California at Berkeley, 2007
PhD in Physics, University of California at Berkeley, 2009

Biography

Professor Hooberman is an experimental high energy particle physicist who uses data from colliders to investigate what the universe is made of. He is particularly interested in understanding the nature of dark matter. Since 2014 he has been a member of the ATLAS collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider, where he led an international team of 250 physicists as Convener of the Supersymmetry Group. He is a recipient of the Department of Energy Early Career Research Program award recognizing outstanding scientists early in their careers. As a member of the CMS collaboration employed by Fermilab, he contributed to the discovery of the Higgs boson that led to the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics. He received his PhD in physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 2009 and his Bachelor's degree from Columbia University in 2005. He is also a musician , poker enthusiast, and cat person.

Academic Positions

Associate Professor, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2020-present
Affiliate Professor, Illinois Center for Advanced Studies of the Universe (ICASU), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2020-present
Assistant Professor, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2014-2020
Research Associate, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, 2009-2014
Graduate Student Research Assistant, University of California at Berkeley, 2005-2009
Undergraduate Researcher, Columbia University, 2003-2005

Research Statement

Particle physicists seek to answer Big Questions that date back at least as far as the ancient Greeks. What is the universe made of? What are the fundamental laws of nature? How did the universe begin and evolve to its present state? Modern scientific methods including particle accelerators allow us to address these questions empirically. A great deal has been learned over the past century but there is still much that we do not know. We do not understand the nature of dark matter, a mysterious substance that pervades our universe. Our current understanding of the elementary particles and forces also predicts that matter and anti-matter should have annihilated with each other into pure energy in the early universe, making the very existence of the universe a mystery to us.

Prof. Hooberman's research focuses on using data from the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider to address these questions. He has 14 years of experience searching for supersymmetry and other exotics physics phenomena that could explain the nature of dark matter and the predominance of matter over anti-matter in the universe. His group recently played a leadership role in publishing the first ATLAS new physics search at its highest-ever collision energy of 13.6 trillion electron-volts. They implemented novel triggers employing Large Radius Tracking to enhance the discovery reach for displaced leptons. They are currently working on similar upgrades to the Phase 2 ATLAS trigger system that will enable similar searches in the order-of-magnitude larger dataset that will be collected over the next decade. They have developed machine learning techniques to improve particle identification and measurement and are currently collaborating with Prof. Kahn's group on a project supported by a Department of Energy Artificial Intelligence grant aimed at understanding the uncertainties intrinsic to neural networks. They have also recently started a new effort to use particle physics detectors and analysis techniques to image cosmic ray muons and help find metals for the electric vehicle battery revolution.

Prof. Hooberman is currently accepting applications for PhD students to work on ATLAS and cosmic ray muon imaging. All physics PhD students at Illinois are admitted centrally by the department. If you are interested in working with him, please apply here to our PhD program by Jan 15, 2025.