Nikos Varelas: Research 

Ph.D. Experimental Particle Physics, University of Rochester,
Rochester, New York, 1994
B.S. Physics, University of Athens, Athens, Greece, 1985
Biographical Sketch

My area of research is experimental Particle Physics or High Energy Physics (HEP). I conduct my research at the DØ experiment (aerial
view & zoom view) at the Tevatron proton-antiproton Collider
(also here) at Fermi National Accelerator
Laboratory (Fermilab - aerial view) in Batavia, Illinois, USA and at the CMS experiment (also USCMS, LPC) at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. I am also a member
of the Coordinated Theoretical-Experimental Project on QCD (CTEQ) Collaboration.
I have previously worked on the fixed-target, direct-photon experiment E706 at Fermilab, and
on the axion-search experiment E141 at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in Menlo Park, California, USA.
The DØ experiment consists of a collaboration (photo 1 and 2)
of about 650 scientists from Universities and Laboratories in 18 countries. The experiment was commissioned in 1992, and completed a very successful first
run (Run I with proton-antiproton center of mass energy of 1.8 TeV) in 1996. An important milestone of DØ's Run I was the co-discovery (along with the CDF experiment) of the top
quark
(more here) in
March 1995 (more here and Ten Year Anniversary of the top-quark discovery). After a major upgrade of both the Fermilab
accelerator complex and the DØ detector (design pictures and photo), the
experiment started its
2nd run (Run II with proton-antiproton center of mass energy of 1.96 TeV) in 2001 and it was completed in 2011. The upgraded DØ detector was an extremely powerful instrument for precision studies of the Standard Model (more here and here)
and searches for
the Higgs boson (more here) and signatures of new physics. The Tevatron was shut down on Sep. 30, 2011. The Tevatron Milestones can be found here.
My physics interests at DØ included studies of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) with W and Z bosons (more about W & Z bosons here), high-pt Jet Physics, Jet Substructure, QCD Color Coherence Effects (publications), searches for the Higgs boson and for Quark Compositeness. I
served as Co-Convener of the Higgs
Physics Group (2003-2004) and Co-Convener of the QCD
Physics Group in Run I (1995-1997). The DØ publications on QCD can be found here and on Higgs searches here.
My technical contributions to DØ center on the Trigger System. My group at UIC was responsible for the development and commissioning of the Level-2
Calorimeter Trigger for Run II. The group was also involved in the development and commissioning of the Level-1
Calorimeter Trigger upgrade for
the 2nd part of Run II. I served as Trigger Coordinator for the DØ experiment (2004-2006), Co-Project Manager of the Trigger Upgrade for Run II (2000-2001), and Chair of the Trigger Board (2002-2003).
The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment consists of a collaboration of more than 3000 scientists from 40 countries. The CMS Detector was commissioned in Fall 2008. My physics interests focus on QCD studies, Higgs boson searches, and searches for Quark Compositeness. I served as Co-Convener of the Jets & Missing ET Physics Object Group (2007) and as Co-Convener of the QCD Physics Analysis Group (2008-2009). Results from the QCD Group can be found here. Results from the Higgs Group can be found here. I served as a member of the CMS Publications Committee (2010-2011). The CMS publications can be found here.
I have been elected a member of the Executive Committee of the American Physical Society Division of Particles and Fields (1/2012-12/2014) and a member of the Users Executive Committee (UEC) at Fermilab (2011-2013). I am the Chair of the UEC Outreach subcommittee.

LHC Operates at 8 TeV - 05 April 2012
LHC Operates at 7 TeV - 30 March 2010
LHC Beam(s) Pass from CMS - Nov. 2009
LHC First Beam Event: 10.09.08

International Linear Collider

CTEQ

UIC High Energy Web Page

My Publication List and Citations/h-index from SPIRES 
"Backscatter Microscopes", (Search for Quark Compositeness)Fermilab Today, Mar 16, 2012.
"UIC Pysicists on Higgs Hunt", UIC NEWS, Dec 14, 2011.
"LHC @ 7 TeV", UIC NEWS, Apr 7, 2010.
"UIC @ CMS", CMS TIMES, Nov 27, 2006.
"When a Z Boson Has Company", Fermilab Today, Jan 19, 2006.
"Search for the Smallest Constituents of Matter", UIC TODAY Newspaper, Apr 4-5, 2002.

Selected Presentations:
- "QCD: Experiment", plenary talk, presented at the International Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics - HEP2011, Grenoble, France, July 21-27, 2011.
- "Status of QCD", plenary talk, presented at the 22nd Rencontres de Blois "Particle Physics and Cosmology" Conference, Blois, France, July 15-20, 2010.
- "QCD and Electroweak Results from the Tevatron", plenary talk, presented at the Physics at the LHC Conference, DESY, Germany, June 7-12, 2010.
- "Prospects for QCD at LHC", presented at the Aspen Particle Physics Conference, Aspen, Colorado, January 17-23, 2010.
- "Standard Model and Beyond - From Tevatron to LHC", colloquium presented at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, December 3, 2009.
- "QCD Physics at CMS", presented at the CTEQ Meeting,
Northwestern University, November 20-21, 2009.
- "The QCD Program at CMS", seminar presented at Northwestern University, October 5, 2009.
- "QCD at CMS", seminar presented at University of Virginia, August 26, 2009.
- "Production and Evolution of High Energy Jets", two lectures presented at the 16th CTEQ Summer School, Madison, Wisconsin, June 24 - July 2, 2009.
- "Dijet Production at DØ", presented at the 17th International Conference on Supersymmetry and the Unification of Fundamental Interactions (SUSY09), Northeastern University, Boston, June 5-10, 2009.
- "QCD at CMS", seminar presented at MIT, Boston, June 8, 2009.
- "The QCD Physics Program at CMS", seminar presented at Los Alamos National Laboratory, April 27, 2009.
- "Jets at CMS", presented at the Northwest Terascale Research Projects: Parton Showers and Event Structure at the LHC, University of Oregon, February 23-27, 2009.
- "QCD at LHC Startup", presented at the CMS Week, Limassol, Cyprus, June 23-27, 2008.
- "Jets and Missing ET for CMS Physics", presented at the LPC Workshop on Early Physics, Fermilab, June 8-9, 2007.
- "Jets and Missing ET", presented at the USCMS Collaboration Meeting, CALTECH, May 4-5, 2007.
- "Search for the Higgs at the Tevatron", presented at the 13th CTEQ Summer School, Rhodes, Greece, July 1-9, 2006.
- "Standard Model Higgs Searches at the Tevatron", presented at the CTEQ Meeting, Jefferson Lab, Hampton, Virginia, November 11-12, 2005.
- "Standard Model Higgs Searches at the Tevatron", presented at the International Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics (HEP 2005), Lisbon, Portugal, July 21-27, 2005. The proceedings paper can be found here.
- "Production and Evolution of High Energy Jets - A focused introduction", presented at the 12th CTEQ Summer School, Puebla, Mexico, May 19-27, 2005. My lectures from the 2004, 2001,
2000 CTEQ summer schools.
- "The State of the Trigger", plenary talk, DØ Collaboration Meeting, March 1-5 2005.
- "Electroweak and Higgs Physics at DØ", presented at the International Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics (HEP 2003), Aachen, Germany, July 17-23, 2003. Published
in Eur Phys J C 33, s671 (2004).
- "QCD Results from the Tevatron Run I", presented at the IPPP Workshop on Multiparticle Production in QCD Jets, Durham, England, December 12-15, 2001.
- "Jet Production at DØ", presented at the XXXth International Conference on High Energy Physics, Osaka, Japan, July 27-August 2, 2000.
- "Production of W and Z Bosons at the Tevatron", presented at the International Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics, Tampere, Finland, July 15-21, 1999.
- "A Summary of Recent Color Coherence Results", presented at the 18th International Conference on Physics in Collision, Frascati, Italy, June 17-19, 1998.
- "QCD Results from DØ", presented at the High Energy Physics International Euroconference on Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD 97), Montpellier, France, July 3-9, 1997.
- "Summary of the Hadronic Final States Working Group", 5th International Workshop on Deep Inelastic Scattering and QCD, Chicago, Illinois, April 14-18, 1997.
- "High-ET Jet Results from DØ", presented at the 28th International Conference on High Energy Physics, Warsaw, Poland, July 25-31, 1996.
- "Jet Studies at All Rapidities from DØ and CDF", presented at the 31st Rencontres de Moriond, QCD and High-Energy Interactions, Les Arcs, France, March 23-30, 1996.
- "Color Coherence Radiation Effects in Multijet Events at DØ", International Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics, Brussels, Belgium, July 27 - August 2, 1995.
- "Results on Soft Gluon Resummation and Color Coherence from DØ and CDF", presented at the 10th Topical Workshop on Proton-Antiproton Collider Physics, Batavia, Illinois, May 9-13, 1995.
- "Calibration of the E706 Liquid Argon Electromagnetic Calorimeter", presented at the 4th International Conference on Advanced Technology and Particle Physics, Como, Italy, October 3-7, 1994.
- A complete list of presentations can be found here

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