Data Science Institute

Matt LeBlanc completed his Ph.D. in experimental particle physics at the University of Victoria (Canada), and held postdoctoral appointments at the University of Arizona, CERN and the University of Manchester (UK) as a member of the ATLAS Collaboration. He became a member of the CMS Collaboration after coming to Brown in 2024.

Matt has lead physics analyses at the LHC on a broad range of topics, including both precision measurements and searches for new physics. His work particularly focuses on the use of hadronic objects and final states to extract new information about the Standard Model and to search for signs of new particles. Beyond searches and measurements, Matt has also held coordination-level positions within ATLAS related to the reconstruction and calibration of hadronic objects.

How does your research, teaching, or other work relate to data or computational science?

My research is in experimental particle physics, where I apply data science techniques to extract new information from the petabytes of data collected by the CMS Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. I focus on the physics of particle 'jets', where I have made significant contributions to algorithms that classify and precisely calibrate their properties, including using AI/ML techniques. My work has explored applications of novel analysis techniques from other fields to LHC data, including topic modelling and optimal transport algorithms. I am interested in developing more efficient data pipelines and simulations for particle physics, as computing during the High-Luminosity LHC era will be more demanding than ever.