Laura Kormos

My research is driven by a desire to understand the universe at its most fundamental level, that of the basic particles of which it is composed. These particles are much smaller than atoms, or even nuclei. Some of them have no measureable volume at all. One of the most ubiquitous and titillating of these particles is the neutrino. Because it only interacts via the weak force, it almost never interacts, making it tantalisingly difficult to understand. Yet these most diminutive of all particles may have played a pivitol role in the evolution of the universe, enabling the devlopment of a stable, matter-dominated universe. We just don't know. Research at neutrino experiments such as SNO and T2K has illuminated some of the hidden propoerties of neutrinos upon which models of the early universe rely, and spurred an interest in extensions to our current standard model of particle physics. Bit by bit, it is pushing the boundaries of our understanding of the universe outwards.