Professor Tony Gherghetta

Professor Gherghetta's research program directly addresses fundamental questions such as; what is the world made of and what holds it together?

The subatomic world deep inside the atom's nucleus is probed by smashing atoms together in particle accelerators. The largest particle accelerator in the world is the Large Hadron Collider, at the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Switzerland. Its main experimental goal is to reveal, for the first time, the underlying structure of the subatomic world.

Current theoretical models for how matter 'holds together' break down at subatomic distances and many candidate theories have been proposed to explain subatomic particle behaviour. Theoretical models for subatomic particles also have implications for understanding the mysterious dark matter and dark energy components in the Universe. Professor Gherghetta's research program aims to answer questions about the makeup of these new theories and will help guide experimentalists in their quest to discover new behaviour at the Large Hadron Collider.

Professor Gherghetta obtained his PhD degree in theoretical particle physics from the University of Chicago, following which he held appointments at the University of Michigan, CERN and the University of Lausanne. In 2002 he began an appointment as Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota, becoming Associate Professor (with tenure) in 2006.

Professor Gherghetta has been awarded the Digby Fitzhardinge Memorial Prize (1985) and the Lady James Prize (1986), both from The University of Western Australia, and the Research Innovation Award by the Research Corporation, USA (2004). He was a Hackett Scholar (1988-1990) from the University of Western Australia and at CERN he received a non-member state Fellowship (1997-1999), and appointed Scientific Associate in 2006.