Research Interest:

My research is focused on precision measurement of fundamental properties of nucleons. These studies seek to understand the internal structure of hadrons in terms of the underlying quark and gluon degrees of freedom of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). Most of this research is carried out at Jefferson Lab (JLab) in Newport News where we undertake experiments in search of signatures of QCD in nuclei. Recently, we have completed two experiments using the upgraded JLab Hall-C. One experiment was a search for the phenomenon known as color transparency in protons and the other was a search for charge symmetry violation in the quark distributions of protons and neutrons. As part of the PRad experiment we used a novel technique to precisely measure the charge radius of the proton. The PRad experiment addresses the so called "proton radius puzzle" , the large discrepancy between measurements using electrons vs muons. An upcoming experiment involves measuring the mesonic content of the nucleon using deep-inelastic scattering with spectator tagging, this experiment will also allow us to exact the quark distributions inside pions. My research program also includes precision tests of fundamental symmetries and the Standard Model, which constitute experimental searches for new forces beyond the four included in the Standard Model. One such experiments - (The QWeak experiment) used parity violating electron scattering from the proton to perform the first high precision measurement of the weak charge of the proton. As part of this experiment my group built a set of diamond micro-strip tracking detectors which were the first such detectors to be used in a nuclear and particle physics experiment.

Education:

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