Mark Neubauer

Mark Neubauer is a Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with additional affiliations at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He joined the University of Illinois faculty in Fall 2007 after completing postdoctoral research at MIT (2001-2004) and UCSD (2004-2007). He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 2001.

Neubauer's research spans experimental particle physics with significant contributions in neutrino physics, Higgs boson physics, and electroweak physics. His work has been instrumental in resolving the Solar Neutrino Problem through the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, where he demonstrated that approximately 2/3 of solar neutrinos change flavor before detection on Earth. He has also made significant contributions to the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) experiment and the ATLAS Collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider, including the first observation of WZ diboson production, first evidence for ZZ production, and contributions to the Higgs boson discovery in 2012.

His recent research focuses on searches for physics beyond the Standard Model through detailed study of high-energy proton-proton collisions at CERN's Large Hadron Collider. His group develops electronics for the ATLAS Fast Hardware Tracker system and works on scientific computing projects including serving as principal investigator for the ATLAS Tier-2 cluster at Illinois. The most recent publications reveal a strong focus on Higgs boson physics, exotic decay channels, and the application of machine learning techniques to enhance sensitivity in particle physics experiments.

His scientific achievements have been recognized with numerous awards including the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (2016), Dean's Award for Excellence in Research (2013), and the National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2011).

Neubauer is actively involved in scientific computing initiatives, serving as co-PI for the conceptualization of a Scientific Software Innovation Institute for high-energy physics. His educational contributions include teaching numerous physics courses and mentoring students in computational physics and particle physics research.