Kétévi Adiklè Assamagan is an African American physicist at the

Brookhaven National Laboratory Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratories, United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, New York, a hamlet of the Brookhaven, New York, Town of Brookhaven. It w ...

. He was elected a Fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...

in 2021. Assamagan founded the African School of Physics.

Early life and education

Assamagan was born in Port-Gentil

Gabon Gabon ( ; ), officially the Gabonese Republic (), is a country on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, on the equator, bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, the Republic of the Congo to the east and south, and ...

, and moved to

Togo Togo, officially the Togolese Republic, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to Ghana–Togo border, the west, Benin to Benin–Togo border, the east and Burkina Faso to Burkina Faso–Togo border, the north. It is one of the le ...

at the age of 4. He was an undergraduate student at the

University of Lomé The University of Lomé (; abbreviated UL) is a public university in Togo, located in the capital Lomé. It is the country's largest university. It was founded in 1970 as the University of Benin () and adopted its current name in 2001. 2011 s ...

. After earning his bachelor's degree in Physics and Chemistry he was awarded a scholarship from the African-American Institute to study in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, where he joined the

Southern Illinois University Southern Illinois University is a system of public universities in the southern region of the U.S. state of Illinois. Its headquarters is in Carbondale, Illinois. Board of trustees The university is governed by the nine member SIU Board of T ...

. He eventually started a graduate studies at

Ball State University Ball State University (Ball State or BSU) is a public research university in Muncie, Indiana, United States. The university has three off-campus centers in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, and Fishers, Indiana. The university is composed of seven aca ...

. His Master's research involved the development of a two-dimensional analytical model of a solar concentrator. After earning his master's degree, he moved to the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...

, where he worked toward a doctorate in particle physics. During his doctorate he worked at the

Paul Scherrer Institute The Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) is a multi-disciplinary research institute for natural and engineering sciences in Switzerland. It is located in the Canton of Aargau in the municipalities Villigen and Würenlingen on either side of the Ri ...

Research and career

Assamagan was appointed to

Hampton University Hampton University is a private, historically black, research university in Hampton, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1868 as Hampton Agricultural and Industrial School, it was established by Black and White leaders of the American Missiona ...

where he worked on the

Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), commonly called Jefferson Lab or JLab, is a US Department of Energy National Laboratory located in Newport News, Virginia. Since June 1, 2006, it has been operated by Jefferson Scienc ...

. He eventually moved to the

ATLAS experiment ATLAS is the largest general-purpose particle detector experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a particle accelerator at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Switzerland. The experiment is designed to take advantage of ...

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...

. His research considers physics beyond the

Standard Model The Standard Model of particle physics is the Scientific theory, theory describing three of the four known fundamental forces (electromagnetism, electromagnetic, weak interaction, weak and strong interactions – excluding gravity) in the unive ...

. He moved to

in 2001, where he worked on the physics analysis tools for

ATLAS An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of world map, maps of Earth or of a continent or region of Earth. Advances in astronomy have also resulted in atlases of the celestial sphere or of other planets. Atlases have traditio ...

. He was made coordinator for the software of the Muon Spectrometer. He was part of the ATLAS Collaboration when they first observed the

Higgs boson The Higgs boson, sometimes called the Higgs particle, is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics produced by the excited state, quantum excitation of the Higgs field, one of the field (physics), fields in particl ...

in 2012. Assamagan is co-founder of the African School of Physics, a non-profit school training African researchers in fundamental physics and applications. In 2019, he co-funded with Fairouz Malek, Simon Connel and others, the African Strategy for Fundamental Physics. He was elected to the

African Academy of Sciences The African Academy of Sciences (AAS) is a non-aligned, non-political, not-for-profit, pan-African learned society formed in 1985. The AAS elects fellows ( FAAS) and affiliates. The AAS also awards the Obasanjo Prize for Scientific Discovery a ...

in 2019 and the

in 2021.

Selected publications

* * * *

Personal life

Assamagan plays African drums.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Assamagan, Ketevi 1963 births African-American engineers 21st-century African-American academics 21st-century American academics Fellows of the American Physical Society 20th-century African-American academics 20th-century American academics Living people University of Lomé alumni African-American physicists Southern Illinois University alumni 20th-century American physicists 21st-century American physicists People associated with CERN