Freya Blekman
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Originally from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, I now work at CERN as a Research Associate for Cornell University's Laboratory for Elementary Particle Physics (LEPP). Working as a physicist in the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) collaboration, I am permanently based at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. The CMS experiment will start taking data later this year, and my time is split between making sure the pixel detector, which is closest to the particle collisions, is ready and doing software and algorithm preparation so CMS can analyze data with physics software once collisions start.
Previously, as an undergraduate I worked on the LHCb experiment (another CERN experiment, studying the difference between matter and antimatter using b-quarks) on detector development of drift chambers. I was hooked, I really enjoy the variety and challenges that particle physics work offers. It was a very easy choice to continue as a junior research scientist at NIKHEF (the Netherlands' Particle Physics Institute) which resulted in my Ph.D. on a measurement of the top quark pair production frequency at the Tevatron collider at Fermilab, at the DØ experiment. As a genuine World Citizen, I then moved to Imperial College, London, where I continued working on DØ but also started to ramp up my CMS activities, focusing on software development and documentation, grid analysis and tau lepton reconstruction.
In my free time I roam the nightlife in Geneva from my downtown bachelorette pad and enjoy listening to alternative rock, classical music and electro. Or actually most music that is properly executed, really. In addition I am a member of an international running club, I am trying to become a single malt Scotch expert by practice, and I enjoy drawing, reading and seeing independent movies.
