Physics Ph.D. students Prakash Thapa and Shawn Zaleski awarded research grants for work at national laboratory

This year, physics Ph.D. students Prakash Thapa and Shawn Zaleski, working with thesis advisor, Professor Paul Karchin in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, were each awarded research grants from Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois for work on the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland.

The CMS project is a collaborative effort including Fermilab, CERN, Wayne State, and other institutions around the world. The grants awarded to Thapa and Zaleski are under the auspices of Fermilab's LHC Physics Center Guest and Visitor Program.

Thapa will begin his residency at Fermilab in May 2017. Zaleski, who is currently a resident at Fermilab, has also been awarded a research grant by the Universities Research Association (URA), an international consortium of 89 leading research-oriented universities, including Wayne State. Zaleski's award from URA is under the auspices of its Visiting Scholars at Fermilab Program.