Wendy Taylor is an Experimental Particle Physicist at

York University York University (), also known as YorkU or simply YU), is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, and it has approximately 53,500 students, 7,000 faculty and staff, ...

and a former

Canada Research Chair Canada Research Chair (CRC) is a title given to certain Canadian university research professors by the Canada Research Chairs Program. Program goals The Canada Research Chair program was established in 2000 as a part of the Government of Canada ...

. She is the lead for

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 ...

group at

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 ...

Education

Taylor graduated from the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

with

Bachelors of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

in Physics in 1991. As an undergraduate, she worked at

TRIUMF Triumf may refer to: * TRIUMF, Canada's national particle accelerator centre * 14959 TRIUMF, a minor planet * S-400 Triumf, a Russian anti-aircraft weapon system developed in the 1990s * Triumf Riza (1979–2007), Kosovo police officer and member o ...

, working on rare

kaon In particle physics, a kaon, also called a K meson and denoted , is any of a group of four mesons distinguished by a quantum number called strangeness. In the quark model they are understood to be bound states of a strange quark (or antiquark ...

decay. She completed her graduate studies at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

, where she earned a PhD under the supervision of Pekka Sinervo in 1999. She worked on fragmentation properties of the

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 ...

. She worked at

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public university, public research university in Stony Brook, New York, United States, on Long Island. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is on ...

as a postdoctoral fellow. She worked on

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 ...

D0 experiment D, or d, is the fourth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''dee'' (pronounced ), plural ''dees''. History Th ...

, building electronics to detect

particles in real time.

Research

Taylor's research focuses on the

magnetic monopole In particle physics, a magnetic monopole is a hypothetical particle that is an isolated magnet with only one magnetic pole (a north pole without a south pole or vice versa). A magnetic monopole would have a net north or south "magnetic charge". ...

. To do this, she is using the ATLAS detector. Her lab concentrated on the development of firmware for the transition radiation tracker within the ATLAS experiment. She is motivated by predictions from

Grand Unified Theory A Grand Unified Theory (GUT) is any Mathematical model, model in particle physics that merges the electromagnetism, electromagnetic, weak interaction, weak, and strong interaction, strong fundamental interaction, forces (the three gauge theory, ...

, the observation of quantised charge and potential to reinforce the symmetry in

Maxwell's equations Maxwell's equations, or Maxwell–Heaviside equations, are a set of coupled partial differential equations that, together with the Lorentz force law, form the foundation of classical electromagnetism, classical optics, Electrical network, electr ...

. Taylor spent five years working at the

Tevatron The Tevatron was a circular particle accelerator (active until 2011) in the United States, at the Fermilab, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (called ''Fermilab''), east of Batavia, Illinois, and was the highest energy particle collider unt ...

particle accelerator. She was concerned when it lost government funding in 2011. Whilst working at the

particle accelerator, Taylor identified

CP violation In particle physics, CP violation is a violation of CP-symmetry (or charge conjugation parity symmetry): the combination of C-symmetry (charge conjugation symmetry) and P-symmetry ( parity symmetry). CP-symmetry states that the laws of physics s ...

in the decay of

s, which could contribute to the dominance of matter in the universe. The rate at which she detected

was two-orders of magnitude larger than that predicted by 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 ...

of particle physics. She joined

in 2004, where she was one of two women in the department. She held a Tier 2

between 2004 and 2014. Taylor is a member 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 ...

and the Particle Physics Division of the

Canadian Association of Physicists Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP), or in French Association canadienne des physiciens et physiciennes (ACP) is a Canadian professional society that focuses on creating awareness among Canadians and Canadian legislators of physics issues, sp ...

. In 2024, Taylor was named a Fellow of the Canadian Association of Physicists for "... her outstanding contributions to particle physics including leading collider searches for magnetic monopoles, B-meson oscillations, and CP violation; and for notable service to the physics community, engaging in physics outreach, and tirelessly promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion in physics".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Wendy Living people Particle physicists Experimental physicists Canadian physicists University of British Columbia Faculty of Science alumni University of Toronto alumni Canadian women physicists Academic staff of York University Year of birth missing (living people) People associated with CERN Canada Research Chairs