Profile

Photo:

Joel Goldstein

My CV

  • Education:

    Bancroft’s School in Woodfod Green, Cambridge and Boston Universities

  • Qualifications:

    O Levels, A Levels, BA, PhD

  • Work History:

    Fermilab, Rutherford Appleton Lab, Bristol University

  • Employer:

    University of Bristol

Joel Goldstein is a member of:

Photo: CMS
CMS

  • About Me:

    I live in Bristol with my wife and two daughters, working at the University.

  • Read more

    I have lived with my wife in Bristol for about 15 years, and now we have two daughters in the local primary school. I normally cycle into the University to work, but also travel a lot to national and international facilities for work.

  • My pronouns are:

    he/him

  • My Work:

    I search through the results of trillions of particle collisions, trying to find something unexpected.

  • Read more

    I am a particle physicist. I design, build and operate huge experiments that observe particles smashing into each other at extremely high energies. I then sift through the results, looking for signs of new, unknown forces or particles. Most of my current work is on CMS, one of the two large general purpose experiments at the LHC – the Large Hadron Collider at CERN

  • My Typical Day:

    A mixture of teaching students, sitting in meetings, and trying to find time to solve some problems.

  • Read more

    I have to balance teaching, administration and research. After a quick check of e-mails and the latest scientific results from my field, I may meet with a technician to discuss some work they are doing, prepare some undergraduate teaching sessions, and then sit down with the team I have working on possible upgrades to the current LHC detectors. In the afternoons I often video-conference with collaborators at CERN and around the world.

  • What I'd do with the prize money:

    Support outreach to schools

  • My Interview

    • How would you describe yourself in 3 words?

      Fun and friendly physicist.

      What did you want to be after you left school?

      A particle physicist

      Were you ever in trouble at school?

      Not really

      Who is your favourite singer or band?

      Queen

      What's your favourite food?

      Curry

      If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!

      More money to fund my research, someone to do my admin for me, and a really good idea for an exciting experiment.

      Tell us a joke.

      A man walked into a bar. The second man ducked.

Questions answered by Joel

View all Joel's answered questions

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