Tara Georgina Shears (born 1969) is a Professor of Physics at the

University of Liverpool The University of Liverpool (abbreviated UOL) is a Public university, public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool, Victoria University (United Kingdom), Victoria University, it received Ro ...

Early life

Shears was born in Salisbury in

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...

. She remained in Wiltshire, living in Wootton Rivers and attending the co-educational comprehensive school Pewsey Vale School, where she was inspired by her chemistry teacher. The school had no sixth form, and her parents moved to Wedhampton (near Urchfont), where she attended the co-educational independent school Dauntsey's School, which offered many state scholarships at the time — many of the pupils were state-funded. At A-level she studied Maths, Physics, Chemistry and English, where she was the only female in her Physics class — not uncommon in British co-educational schools, even independent schools. She obtained A grades in all her sixth form exams. Her experience of being the only female in the Physics class would have been an advantage when she attended

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

to study Physics. She obtained a 1st Class honours degree in 1991. She went to the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

to complete a PhD in Particle Physics at

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Corpus Christi College (full name: "The College of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary", often shortened to "Corpus") is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. From the late 14th c ...

. She completed a PPARC ( Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, now the

Science and Technology Facilities Council The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) is a United Kingdom government agency that carries out research in science and engineering, and funds UK research in areas including particle physics, nuclear physics, space science and astr ...

since 2007) fellowship at the

Victoria University of Manchester The Victoria University of Manchester, usually referred to as simply the University of Manchester, was a university in Manchester, England. It was founded in 1851 as Owens College. In 1880, the college joined the federal Victoria University. A ...

Career

Particle physics

Shears was awarded a

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

Research Fellowship with the University of Liverpool in 2000 to continue her work at the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) experimental collaboration at the

Fermilab Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located in Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy United States Department of Energy National Labs, national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle phys ...

facility in the USA. In 2004 she joined the

LHCb The LHCb (Large Hadron Collider beauty) experiment is a particle physics detector collecting data at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. LHCb specializes in the measurements of the parameters of CP violation in the interactions of b- and c-hadro ...

experiment at CERN's

Large Hadron Collider The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It was built by the CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008, in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists, ...

(LHC) particle accelerator (the world's largest), for which she initiated and developed the electroweak and

exotica Exotica is a musical genre that was popular during the 1950s to mid-1960s with Americans who came of age during World War II. The term was coined by Simon "Si" Waronker, Liberty Records co-founder and board chairman, named after the 1957 Mart ...

physics working group.

Physics professor

Shears became the first female Professor of Physics at the University of Liverpool, where she researches the properties of

bottom quark The bottom quark, beauty quark, or b quark, is an elementary particle of the third generation. It is a heavy quark with a charge of − ''e''. All quarks are described in a similar way by electroweak interaction and quantum chromodynamic ...

s using hadron colliders, testing 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 ...

theory in the

electroweak In particle physics, the electroweak interaction or electroweak force is the unified description of two of the fundamental interactions of nature: electromagnetism (electromagnetic interaction) and the weak interaction. Although these two forc ...

sector, to seek answers for the reasons that there is so little antimatter in the universe. She is also employed as a

science communicator Science communication encompasses a wide range of activities that connect science and society. Common goals of science communication include informing non-experts about scientific findings, raising the public awareness of and interest in sci ...

, being able to promote female interest in physics as a role model. She is Chair of the STFC's Education, Training and Careers Committee.STFC

Awards and Major Projects

Shears was awarded a

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 ...

fellowship to conduct research on the Large Electron–Positron Collider (LEP). In 1995 she conducted a project: A Measurement of the B"+ and B"0

Meson In particle physics, a meson () is a type of hadronic subatomic particle composed of an equal number of quarks and antiquarks, usually one of each, bound together by the strong interaction. Because mesons are composed of quark subparticles, the ...

Lifetimes and Lifetime Ratio Using the OPAL Detector at LEP.

References

External links

University of Liverpool

Her academic page

Dr. Tara Shears - The Large Hadron Collider in 10' (with english subtitles)

Scientific publications of Tara Shears on INSPIRE-HEP
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shears, Tara 1969 births Academics of the University of Liverpool Alumni of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Alumni of Imperial College London British women physicists English physicists Experimental physicists Particle physicists People associated with CERN People educated at Dauntsey's School People from Pewsey People from Salisbury Science education in the United Kingdom Living people