CURRICULUM VITÆ ET STUDIORUM Paolo Desiati June 2007 1 Personal Data Name : P aolo Desiati Date=P lace of Birth : 7 July 1969; F irenze (Italy) Office Address : Network222 Building 5409 222 W est W ashington Av: Madison; W I 53703; U:S:A: Department of P hysics; Chamberlin Hall 4616 University of W isconsin; 1150 University Av Madison; W I 53706; U:S:A: T elephone Number : +1 − 608 − 890 − 0546 F ax Number : +1 − 608 − 262 − 2309 email : desiati@icecube:wisc:edu URL : http : ==icecube:wisc:edu= ∼ desiati 2 Education and Research Positions 1985-1989 High School study at Liceo Scientifico in Firenze, Italy 1989-1994 University study at the University of Florence, Faculty of Physics, in Firenze, Italy 1993-1994 Undergraduate research at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory, Italy 1994-1995 Military Service in the Italian Army 1996-1999 PhD study at the University of Roma La Sapienza, Faculty of Physics, in Roma, Italy 1999-2001 Post-Doc research at the Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron (DESY) in Zeuthen (Berlin), Germany 2001-2003 Research Associate position at the Physics Department of the University of Wisconsin - Madison, U.S.A. 2003-2006 Assistant Researcher position at the Physics Department of the University of Wisconsin - Madison, U.S.A. 2006-present Associate Researcher position at the Physics Department of the University of Wisconsin - Madison, U.S.A. 1 3 Grants and Fellowships • 1 year fellowship sponsored by INFN (Italian Nuclear Physics National Insti- tute) for undergraduate scientific research at Gran Sasso National Laboratory. National Competition. • 6 months collaboration contract at the Physics Department of the University of Florence. • 9 months grant by the Italian Fondazione Angelo della Riccia for graduate scien- tific research at the Pylos NESTOR Institute (Greece), logistic site of NESTOR neutrino telescope project. Not Accepted. • 2 year Reimar Lust¨ Stipendium grant by K¨orber Stiftung (Hamburg) for post- doc scientific research at DESY Zeuthen (Germany). European Competition. • 2 year CERN applied fellowship devoted in physics-related software development in LHCb experiment. Not accepted. 4 Coordination Activities 2001-2004 AMANDA Simulation Production Coordinator 2004-present IceCube Simulation and Offline Filtering Production Coordinator 2006-present IceCube Atmospheric Neutrino Working Group Coordinator 2006-present Member of the IceCube Trigger, Filter and Transmission Board 5 Studies and Research • RESEARCH ACTIVITY: June 2005-present Position: Associate Researcher appointment at University of Wisconsin, Madi- son. Experiment/Projects: my present activity in the IceCube Collaboration is the coordination of simulation data production and off-line data processing and filtering, and of the Atmospheric Neutrino Working Group, as part of the physics analysis task chart in the Collaboration. I am also member of the Trigger, Filtering and Transmission Board in IceCube. IceCube has developed a custom software framework and new simulation tools. The development of simulation software is a Collaboration-wide activity and my personal contribution is in the development of pieces of code necessary in the simulation chain, and in the testing of software functionality, including the comparison of simulation with experimental data, as part of a wide verification activity. In neutrino telescopes such as IceCube, we need to achieve a back- ground rejection of at least 106. This level of rejection forces us to simulate large quantity of background data, since the neutrino-generated event selection is strongly dependent on how well we know the background contamination at high processing levels. With Juan Carlos Diaz-Velez we have developed a flexible tool, based on python scripting language, which allows productions in a variety of batch systems and architecture environments throughout the Collaboration 2 Institutions in a scalable way. We can make transparently use of GRID Com- puting Systems or of Private Institutional Clusters, and we created an IceCube Distributed Computing System which efficiently handles simulation data gener- ation, data collection and data storage, with the aim of monitoring systems that checks on production status, network congestions and disk space availability. A continuous verification of simulation quality and a particular attention on the quality and efficiency of on-line and off-line data processing is the challenge to achieve high quality level of the data for physics analysis. As the coordinator of the Atmospheric Neutrino Working Group, the aim is to define analysis stretegies for the measurement of the atmospheric neutrino flux. This is the irreducible background for the search of high energy extraterrestrial neutrinos, but it is also the most abundant source of neutrinos recorded by a neutrino telescope. There are still open questions on the physics of atmospheric neutrino production (such as Kaon physics, charm physics, primary cosmic ray composition) which can be probed using a high statistics detailed measurement, also in conjunction with the IceTop surface array. A collaboration with the MIPP experiment, at Fermilab, in underway to achieve a measurement of the proton-nitrogen cross section relevant to describe the lowest part of the atmo- spheric neutrino energy spectrum. Another collaboration with Prof. Wahba at the Department of Statistics of the University of Wisconsin, in Madison, had, as main topic, determination of the the signal probability estimation with penal- ized likelihood method on weighted data. This statistical technique is relevant for the search of neutrino events among a high intensity background and was a new development of techniques already in use in statistics. As a member of the Trigger, Filtering and Transmission Board, I contribute in the coordination of the communication between the analyses working groups requirements and the detector operations priorities in an effort to maintain the detector stable and suitable for physics analyses. June 2003-2005 Position: Assistant Researcher appointment at University of Wisconsin, Madi- son. Activity: I have been responsible of Simulation Production also within AMANDA- II Collaboration, for which I developed a package of software tools (based on perl scripting language) able to make efficient use of the big computing power available at the University of Wisconsin. Easily extensible to use other batch systems this had became an official AMANDA simulation production software framework. I actively participated in analyses involving the experimental data available from AMANDA: such as the study of cosmic muon and atmospheric neutrino background, and analyses startegies to probe the contamination of high energy events from the decay of heavy mesons in the atmosphere. Another analysis I worked in, with an UW graduate student (You-Ren Wang), is the search for high energy neutrinos emitted by steady point sources, such as Supernova Remnants and Active Galactice Nuclei. An analysis has been completed with the data taken by AMANDA-II during the years 2000-02 and the results have been published on Physical Review D. I also participated in the search of high energy neutrinos in coincidence with Gamma Ray Bursts events in the northern hemisphere and of neutrinos from diffuse sources in the Universe. These analyses are challenging because they require a high background rejection 3 power (of the order of 106) in order to achieve a clean neutrino candidates sample. Data filtering a a good understanding of the detector response are essential in the interpretation of experimental data at high background rejection level. • POST-DOC RESEARCH: September 2001-May 2003 Position: Research Associate appointment at University of Wisconsin, Madi- son. Experiment/Project: AMANDA. Activity: I worked in comparing simulated with experimental data to study how we could improve the detector functionality simulation and to evaluate the experimental systematic uncertainties. I participated in the study of the Antarctic ice optical properties using the high quality reconstructed down-going muon intensity, and comparing these result with the ice properties directly mea- sured with in-situ light sources. A new implementation of the ice properties in the AMANDA simulation improved the agreement with the experimental data. I mentored summer students during the summer 2002 and 2003, on projects involving the detection of down-going muon flux with the new updated simula- tion implementation. The measurements of the cosmic muon angular and depth distribution and the study of AMANDA sensitivity for the detection of the un- known source of higher energy muons from decay of heavy charmed mesons in the atmosphere. Tutoring of graduate students during the initial phases of AMANDA-II analysis activity was occupying the rest of my time. June 1999-May 2001 Position: 2-year Post-Doc Grant Reimar Lust¨ Stipendium by K¨orber Stiftung at DESY-Zeuthen, Germany. Experiment/Project: AMANDA Activity: My main activity has been concentrated both on software and physics analysis. On the software side I have developed the first working revision of an on-line Control Program to control and monitor special Optical Modules called digitally controlled Analog Optical Modules (dAOM). dAOM's were a possible prototype of analog sensors to be used for the future IceCube Neutrino Telescope. The program has been implemented in C++ using QT Graphical User Interface toolkit (for the Client) and the MICO implementation of CORBA (for the Server). This control software was tested and then installed at the South