Particle Man

When first introduced to physics as a middle-school student, Aobo Li admitted he found the subject boring. While he didn’t find it easy, he couldn’t connect the elementary principles taught with what he calls “the underlying interactions of nature” that fascinated him. As he grew older, curiosity led him to explore philosophy, religion, and even applied math, but eventually, Li found what he was looking for in the field of particle physics, studying neutrinos.

“I wanted to understand how nature works and how we interact with it,” Li said. “I wanted to know what’s really happening. What are the underlying principles behind the things we see? We see the sky is blue, but why is it blue?”

Now, as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UNC-Chapel Hill, Li develops innovative machine learning algorithms and applies them to neutrino detectors, advancing fundamental physics research.

Li’s work at Carolina led to his winning this year’s Machine Learning: Science and Technology Paper Award from Machine Learning and the Physical Sciences Workshop at the 2022 Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, one of the most prestigious conferences about AI and machine learning. Additionally, his work on LEGEND and KamLAND-Zen earned him a Postdoctoral Award for Research Excellence last year.

Read about Li’s journey and research…

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