Dr. Mayda Velasco: A World-Renowned Latina Physicist

 

    Mayda Velasco is currently a professor at Northwestern University and the director of Instituto de Cosmologia y Fisica de las Americas (COFI Institute) located in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She completed her bachelor's degree in physics at the University of Puerto Rico, her Ph.D. in physics at Northwestern University, and her CERN scientific post-doctorate fellow. She originally planned on pursuing medicine, but an internship at Fermilab piqued her interest in the field of physics. Now, her main focus in the subject is on particle physics.

   COFI came about because Velasco was interested in opening up opportunities in Latin America and allowing fellow Latinos to share their knowledge of physics and cosmology. COFI allows for scientists to come to the island and share their knowledge with the islanders while providing them with opportunities for graduate-level summer schools and fellowships to Latinos and those from underrepresented groups. This institute is opening up opportunities for research and a doctorate degree in physics.

    Velasco has been involved in many research opportunities throughout her life. She completed experimental work in 1995 that worked to solve the proton spin crisis, she worked to understand the electroweak sector in 1996, and she led the NA59 experiment that used crystals to produce polarized photon beams out of unpolarized electrons. Her past research focused on measurements of ultra-rare neutral, charged kaon decays, and the CP nature of the Higgs boson. The Higgs boson is a subatomic particle that is thought to be an important building block of the universe. The discovery of this subatomic particle won a Nobel Prize and Velasco took part in its discovery. Her current research focuses on the use of particles and understanding how different particles interact through the use of colliding particle beams. Her research allows us to further understand the matter of the Universe and how every particle plays an important role in making the world that we live in today.

       

Sources:

https://physics.northwestern.edu/people/faculty/core-faculty/mayda-velasco.html

https://www.cienciapr.org/en/monthly-story/dr-mayda-velasco-bringing-universe-home

https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2019/04/particle-physics-puerto-rico/