Professional Role

Projects

Hosting CERN Exhibition "Accelerating Science" at METU, Ankara
04/02/2012 – 07/08/2012
Middle East Technical University hosted the CERN exhibition "Accelerating Science" from the 2nd of April to the 8th of July on campus. The exhibition was visited by more than 30,000 people and inspired a sense of wonder and curiosity about the origin of the Universe and the basic constituents of matter. It showed how experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN will unravel some of the mysteries of the Universe, and it displayed the connection between fundamental research in the past with technologies of the present. The exhibition was opened with a ceremony, where CERN's Director General Dr. Rolf Heuer and METU's President Prof. Ahmet Acar gave talks. The 1000 seat auditorium was packed with students and members of the public. The videos are on youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-_OKMtMRblw
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Cosmic ray measurement with the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02)
02/01/2011 – present
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) is a particle physics experiment on the International Space Station and is a collaboration of more than 300 physicists. METU Ankara has recently joined the experiment, as the METU group's leader, Bilge Demirkoz, worked on the experiment between 2000 and 2004 while a student at MIT. The group now consists of 6 students, some of whom are still learning about the experiment while, others are doing data analysis. AMS-02 went to space in May 2011 and has been collecting data since. AMS-02 is unique in that it is a magnetic spectrometer which can measure the particle fluxes and ions up to iron, in cosmic rays with unprecedented accuracy. The physics results will have an impact on our understanding of the universe. The search for anti-matter and for signatures of dark matter are under study.
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Biography

Particle physicist + educator currently working at METU and at CERN on the AMS-02 experiment.