Theoretical Physicist Sally Dawson to Present Helen and Morton Sternheim Lecture March 26

Sally Dawson, theoretical physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, will present the department of physics’ fourth annual Helen and Morton Sternheim Lecture on Tuesday, March 26 at 4 p.m. in 135 Integrated Sciences Building. The lecture, “Particle Physics at the Crossroads,” is free and open to the public.

Particle physicists are in the midst of an era where great discoveries are being made about the properties of space and time. From the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 to the search for dark matter, major advances in understanding have occurred. These discoveries, however, make clear that there are many unanswered questions about our universe and very little theoretical guidance as to what to expect. Dawson will discuss the impact of the Higgs discovery and possible roadmaps for future discoveries.

Dawson's research focuses on predictions for Higgs physics at the Large Hadron Collider, and on the expected new discoveries at high energy colliders. She is the author of “The Higgs Hunter’s Guide,” a manual for understanding Higgs physics, and recipient of the 2017 J.J. Sakurai Prize from the American Physical Society “for instrumental contributions to the theory of the properties, reactions and signatures of the Higgs boson.”