Christopher Parkes

Christopher Parkes is a Professor of Experimental Particle Physics at the University of Manchester, where he also serves as Head of the Department of Physics & Astronomy since 2024. He has held key leadership roles in the LHCb experiment at CERN, including Principal Investigator for the UK's LHCb Upgrade (2023) and leader of the LHCb Upgrade II design phase.

• BA (hons.), University of Cambridge (1991-1994)
• D.Phil., University of Oxford (1994-1998)

His research focuses on matter-antimatter asymmetries and radiation-hard silicon detector development, contributing to discoveries like CP violation in B decays and exotic quark configurations. He has received the Institute of Physics High Energy Physics Group Prize (2010) and served on UK particle physics funding councils (STFC PPRP, PPGP).

Current work includes LHCb Upgrade II and mentoring graduate researchers. He was a CERN Guest Professor (2020-2023) and Scientific Associate (2010-2012, 2018-2019), with a career spanning the DELPHI experiment at LEP to modern LHCb projects.