I am a scientist and educator. My research concerns principally fundamental quantum physics - quarks and leptons and standard model interactions, dark matter, and the structure of the physical universe. I have been Principle Investigator in international collaborative efforts using cutting edge technologies. I designed, constructed, commissioned, and operated a major muon detector subsystem of the Collider Detector Facility (CDF) at Fermi National Laboratory (FNAL), known for the discovery of the top quark. I was involved in the commissioning and operation of a laser alignment system and in upgrade construction for the Cathode Strip Chamber (CSC) Endcap Muon subsystem of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, known for the discovery of the Higgs boson. I am a member of the LUX-Zeplin (LZ) collaboration launching a direct search for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) thought to constitute the dark matter in the universe.
Other scientific interests include biology, biophysics and biotechnology, geophysics, muography and archaeology, and energy and sustainability technologies.
I am a passionate educator involved with governance, infrastructure, recruitment, teaching/mentoring/training, and assessment and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I am active in undergraduate innovation and entrepreneurship programming, educational innovation, and educational technology. Recent projects include creating and directing an open lab (Garage Physics) for student innovation and entrepreneurship, directing production of educational objects for mobile deployment (Flexible Physics Mobile), and piloting project-based learning promoting sustainability education (Wisconsin Make Sustain). Other educational initiatives/interests include use of social bookmarking, cloud LaTeX, collaborative learning spaces, inexpensive lecture capture, low cost captioning, audience response systems, and 3d-printing.