Advancing Lepton Flavor Universality and Silicon Sensor Development in Particle Physics

Dr. Simone Mazza, Assistant Research Scientist at the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics (SCIPP), is the recipient of the 2024 ISSNAF Young Investigator INFN Bruno Touschek Award. 

His current research is focused on studying lepton flavor universality through the observation of rare pion decays. He is deeply involved in the PIONEER experiment, which will take place at the PiE-5 pion beam line at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI). In this experiment, He is developing the high granularity active target (ATAR).

In addition to his work on PIONEER, He is interested in the physics at the upcoming Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), which will be built at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). At UCSC, he leads the silicon sensor development for the timing layer of the EPIC detector at EIC. His expertise lies in silicon sensors, especially ultra-fast sensors known as low gain avalanche detectors (LGADs), which offer a timing resolution per hit down to 20 picoseconds.

He has also been involved in organizing the Cal-Bridge mentoring program for several years and am currently serving on the PIONEER Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) committee. Outside of his research, he enjoys surfing and mountain biking in the beautiful Santa Cruz County.

Below is the jury's statement recognizing Dr. Mazza as this year’s awardee.

"Dr. Simone Mazza is awarded the INFN Bruno Toushek Award for his significant contributions to the development and applications of Low-Gain Avalanche Detectors (LGADs) for detector instrumentation, from the High Granularity Timing Detector (HGTD) for the ATLAS experiment, to leading key elements of the PIONEER experiment at PSI. His contributions have been recognized with a US Patent and are reaching across several important areas of particle physics such as the LHC and the EIC and could stretch to medical and industrial applications."