William Balunas

Dr. William (Bill) Balunas is a College Assistant Professor at Trinity Hall and a member of the High Energy Physics group at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge. He holds the Walter Scott Fellowship in Physics and contributes to the ATLAS Collaboration at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC). His research focuses on experimental particle physics, particularly leveraging the Higgs boson to explore physics beyond the Standard Model, including dark matter, Higgs self-interactions, and Higgs boson pair production.

Education:

• Bachelor of Science in Physics from Carnegie Mellon University (2013)
• PhD in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania (2018), focusing on Higgs boson invisible decays
• Postdoctoral researcher at Oxford University (2018–2021), where he held Junior Research and Lecturing roles

Research Interests:

• Experimental particle physics via the ATLAS detector
• Higgs boson decays and interactions
• Dark matter detection strategies
• Monte Carlo modeling and event reconstruction techniques

Awards:

• Walter Scott Fellowship in Physics (2021–present)

Lab and Team Affiliations:

• ATLAS Collaboration (CERN)
• High Energy Physics group at the Cavendish Laboratory