Diego Casadei's curriculum vitae

Curriculum vitae et studiorum

Summary

Currently working on ATLAS at CERN as assistant research scientist of the New York University, I have been working on high-energy physics and particle astrophysics with AMS since 1996 (with a long pause in 1999 for the accomplishment of my military duty as Cavalry lieutenant).  I obtained my Ph.D. degree in Physics in 2003 at the Bologna University, where I also got the Physics degree ("Laurea cum laude", 1998).  In addition to the normal university courses, I attended several schools of computing, experimental physics and astroparticle physics.  My research fields are astrophysics and high-energy physics and I presented my work on a number of international conferences and workshops.  Finally, I am a skilled clarinet player, fond of classical music.

Education

• Music degree (clarinet) (July 1991);
• High School degree "Maturità scientifica" (July 1992);
• University Degree in Physics (Laurea cum laude, April 6, 1998) at Bologna University: development of the Time-Of-Flight (TOF) system of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-01);
• PhD. in Physics (June 5, 2003) at Bologna University: study of cosmic rays with the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02).
• Additional courses:
  • "Giornate di studio sui rivelatori", IX Serie, Villa Gualino - Torino, Italy, Mar. 1998 [about detectors in high energy physics];
  • "IX scuola estiva di calcolo parallelo", CINECA - Bologna, Italy 11-22 Sep. 2000 [on parallel computing and supercomputers];
  • "I Scuola INFN di Computing", LNGS - Assergi, Italy, 6-10 Nov. 2000;
  • "International School of Cosmic Ray Astrophysics: Astrophysical Sources of High-Energy Particles and Radiation", Erice, Italy, 11-21 Nov. 2000;
  • "IX Corso specialistico su C++ e analisi e disegno nella programmazione ad oggetti" [on OO Analysis, Design and Programming], Bologna, Italy, 26-30 Mar. 2001;
  • "Prima Scuola Nazionale INAF/INFN di Astroparticelle. Cosmologia e particelle elementari", Bertinoro, Italy, Oct. 21-26, 2001 [on astroparticle Physics] (as organizer);
  • "I Corso Specialistico su: Programmazione avanzata di C in ambiente UNIX/Linux" [on advanced Linux programming], Bologna, Italy, 11-15 Mar. 2002;
  • "International School on Astroparticle and Neutrino Physics", Villa Cipressi, Varenna, Italy, 10-15 Jun. 2002;
  • "42^nd Course of the Ettore Majorana International School on Subnuclear Physics. How and where to go beyond the Standard Model", Aug. 29 - Sep. 7 2004, Erice, Italy.
  
  

Employment history

• Feb 2007 - present: Assistant research scientist, New York University, USA
• Oct 2003 - Feb 2007: post-doc, INFN, Sezione di Bologna, Italy

Research experience

In the following, several items are related to one or more references, which can be found in http://cern.ch/casadei/papers.html (including several conference talks and many other papers).

1996-1999: AMS-01 experiment

For my laurea's thesis I worked on the Time-Of-Flight (TOF) system of the AMS-01 detector [NIM A 437 (1999) 212], at the INFN-Bologna and CNR-Florence laboratories. In addition, I worked at ETH, Zurich, Kennedy Space Center (Florida), and Johnson Space Center, Houston (Texas).

• R&D of the TOF scintillation counters and calibration of their photomultiplier tubes (PMTs)
• Space test and qualification of the TOF counters
• End of 1997: integration of the TOF system into AMS-01 (ETHZ)
• Feb 1998: integration of AMS-01 into the shuttle Discovery (KSC)
• May-Jun 1998: development of the online monitoring program for AMS-01 (JSC) [D.C., AMS Int. Note, 31 may 1998]
• 2-12 June 1998: youngest member of the Payload Operation Control Center (POCC) @ JSC, during the NASA STS-91 mission, while AMS-01 operated on board of the shuttle Discovery
• Data analysis:
  • performance: AMS-BO Int. Notes 2000-03-02 and 2001-03-01 and conference proceedings hep-ex/0108042, astro-ph/0111480
  • cosmic ray spectra: Phys. Rep. Vol. 366/6, 2002, p. 331

2000-2006: AMS-02 experiment

The second version of the AMS detector (AMS-02) was installed on the International Space Station on 19 May 2011.  I was a member both of the AMS-02 RICH and AMS-02 TOF collaborations, and wrote my Phd thesis on AMS-02 (Direct measurement of galactic cosmic ray fluxes with the orbital detector AMS-02).

• Scientific secretary of the first INFN school of astroparticle physics and cosmology in Bertinoro, Italy, 21--26 Oct 2001
• R&D of the RICH detector (Bologna and Grenoble) [NIM A 560 (2006) 291-302 hep-ex/0211018; AMS-BO Int. Note 2001-08-01; AMS Int. Note, 14 dec 2001]
• R&D of the TOF system (Bologna) [NIM A 623 (2010) 968, hep-ex/0111096, astro-ph/0206021, hep-ex/0305074; AMS-BO Int. Notes 2000-01-01, 2005-03-01; AMS Int. Note ScintEle-04]
• Design of the high-voltage scheme for all scintillators in AMS-02, Bologna and CERN
• Design, testing and production of the front-end electronics for all scintillators in AMS-02, Bologna, Florence and CERN
• Production of simulated Monte Carlo data at the AMS Italian Monte Carlo Production Facility [AMS-BO Int. Note 2002-01-01] located at CNAF, Bologna
• Organization and coordination of two ion beam tests of TOF scintillators in 2002 and 2003 at SPS, CERN [NIM A 525 (2004), 126-131]
• Data analysis and astrophysics studies:
  • performance studies: 29th ICRC (2005) HE 2.1, 29th ICRC (2005) HE 1.5, 29th ICRC (2005) OG 1.5, and several other contributions to international conferences
  • electrons and positrons: ApJ 612 (2004) 262-267
  • propagation of cosmic rays in the galaxy and solar system: astro-ph/0404529
  • fractional charges in space: astro-ph/0304192
  • cosmic antimatter: astro-ph/0405417
  • cosmic gamma radiation: astro-ph/0511674
  • dark matter: astro-ph/0609072
  • light nuclei: ApJ 724 (2010) 329

2007-present: ATLAS experiment at CERN

On February 2007, I started working on the ATLAS detector at CERN as a member of the New York University experimental elementary particle physics group.  I focused on the development of the ATLAS triggers based on the missing transverse momentum (called ``missing transverse-energy'' or MET triggers) and on several physics studies.

• Development of the ATLAS MET triggers:
  • design and implementation of the MET algorithms running at the high-level trigger
  • 2008-2011: coordination of the MET triggers group
  • 2010, 2011: design and commissioning of the new "MET significance" triggers
• Analysis of ATLAS data:
  • A measurement of the ratio of the W and Z cross sections with exactly one associated jet in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with ATLAS Phys. Lett. B 2012
  • Search for Stable Hadronising Squarks and Gluinos at the ATLAS Experiment at the LHC Phys. Lett. B 701 (2011) 1
  • Search for the Standard Model Higgs boson in the decay channel H -> ZZ(*) -> 4 l with the ATLAS detector Phys. Lett. B 705 (2011) 435-451
  • Performance of the ATLAS Trigger System in 2010 EPJC 72 (2012) 1849
• Reviews:
  • member of the ATLAS editorial board for top cross-section combination
  • EdBoard of Measurement of the ZZ production cross section and limits on anomalous neutral triple gauge couplings in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108 (2012) 041804
  • EdBoard of Measurement of the WZ production cross section and limits on anomalous neutral triple gauge couplings in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector, arXiv:1111.5570
  • I took part in the review process of the Università degli Studi in Milano (Italy) in 2011 as the external reviewer of its Physics Department
• Statistical methods:
  • member of the ATLAS statistics forum, in charge for the Bayesian methods
  • Reference analysis of the signal + background model in counting experiments, JINST 7 (2012) 01012 (recommended approach for Bayesian analyses in ATLAS, can be used also in CMS and in combined publications)
  • Estimating the selection efficiency, arXiv:0908.0130 (used in trigger efficiency studies)

Teaching and outreach

• 2003/2004, 2004/2005, 2005/2006: "tutorato in fisica generale" (˜ assistant of a full professor in general physics), Engineering Department, University of Bologna
• 2004/2005, 2005/2006, 2006/2007: joint professor in experimental physics, Physics Department of the University of Bologna
• from 2003 to 2006 I took part to the examinations in general physics, mechanics and electromagnetism hold by engineering students, and to the examinations in the first two laboratory courses in physics and in C/C++ programming hold by physics students (Univ. Bologna)
• I have supervised the work documented by 6 master theses and 2 PhD theses on AMS
• I am advising 1--2 NYU PhD students per year, who spend 6--12 months at CERN to work on ATLAS

Awards and funds

• "Premio di operosità scientifica 2000" of the Italian Physical Society
• Research fund ("assegno di ricerca") during my PhD from May 2000 to May 2003 by the Physics Department of the Bologna University
• I submitted a project to measure the polarization of high-energy photons (hard X-rays and gamma-rays) with a nano-satellite based on thin silicon layers and anti-coincidence scintillators to the EURYI 2005 program, approved by the national (Italian) committee but not passing the last approval

Music

I am a clarinet performer with good skills (expecially in the past!) and a deep knowledge of the classical repertoir.  After having got the clarinet degree in 1991, I studied for one year under the guide of Italo Capicchioni (Republic of San Marino), who was the first clarinet of the "Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala" in Milan for half a dozen years.  In addition to playing music, I like composing short pieces for various instrumental ensambles.  A few recordings and original compositions can be found in this web site (http://cern.ch/casadei/music.html).