Current Members


 

Arneodo, Francesco 
Principal Investigator  │  Associate Dean of Science  │ Professor of Physics  

Francesco Arneodo is the Principal Investigator for the Astroparticle Lab which was established in 2013 at New York University Abu Dhabi. Francesco is an experimental physicist with a focus on radiation detectors, applied in various domains: astrophysics, environment, and cultural heritage.

He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Rome — La Sapienza and his Master’s degree from the University of Torino, Italy. He started his career at the Gran Sasso Laboratory (Italy) with the EAS-TOP cosmic ray experiment. He also worked on neutrino physics with liquid argon detectors and currently on the search for Dark Matter in the framework of the XENON program.

 

Office Phone (UAE): +971 2 628 5331   │   CV: PDF Link    │    Orcid.org


 

Di Giovanni, Adriano 
Research Scientist

Adriano Di Giovanni is a Research Scientist at Francesco Arneodo’s group and he has been with the Astro-particle Lab since its establishment in 2013. He is an active member of several international projects concerning the direct search of Dark Matter (XENON and DARWIN), Space science (Light-1 and Open Universe), Cultural Heritage (CHNet). He been working on particle physics detectors since 2003, when he started his master thesis at Gran Sasso National Laboratory (LNGS) of Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN).

He left LNGS 10 years later, to join Prof. Francesco Arneodo at NYUAD in order to establish an advanced astro-particle laboratory, with the focus at developing detection techniques for astro-particle and applied physics. Adriano’s research output is mainly driven by his interest in developing particle detectors, their characterization and applications. He has carried out R&D programs based on gas detectors (Resistive Plate Chambers with Glass, single- and multi-gap, and Bakelite electrodes), Photosensors (PhotoMultiplier Tubes (PMTs), Silicon PhotoMultipliers (SiPMs) and Multi-Pixel Photon Counters) coupled to scintillating materials (Crystals, Plastics, Xenon Gas) and charge detectors (Silicon Drift Detectors(SDD)). He is an expert in the characterization of detector readout and signal processing thanks to the long-standing collaboration with Age Scientific srl.

Office Phone (UAE): +971 2 628 5301   │   CV: PDF Link


 

Bruno, Gianmarco 
Research Associate

Gianmarco Bruno joined the Astroparticle Lab in November 2017 as a Research Associate. Dr. Gianmarco Bruno received his Ph.D. from the University of L'Aquila and a degree in Physics at the University of Torino. He has worked for several years in the "INFN - Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso" (Italy), which is nowadays the largest facility in the world for underground astroparticle physics. Gianmarco has been involved in various underground experiments studying rare processes, such as neutrino form gravitational core-collapse and dark matter. He is proudly member of the The XENON1T experiment, which is the most sensitive direct detection experiment for dark matter in the form of weakly interacting particles (WIMPs) with masses above 6 GeV/c^2 scattering off nuclei. His research currently focuses on both simulation of detectors for gamma spectroscopy and monitoring and controlling of a cryogenic facility based on a liquid nitrogen cooling system.

Office Phone (UAE): +971 2 628 6702   │   CV: PDF Link    │   Orcid.org


 

Fawwaz, Osama 
Associate Instructor in Physics

Osama Fawwaz joined the Astroparticle Lab as a Researcher in 2015. holds masters in Physics and works as a full-time instructor at NYUAD. As a member of Prof. Arneodo research group, he gets involved in various activities, mainly gamma spectroscopy of the environment and NORM samples, also characterizing detectors.

Office Phone (UAE): +971 2 628 4374    │   CV: PDF Link


 

Manenti, Laura 
Postdoctoral Associate

Laura Manenti is a Postdoctoral Associate expert in noble liquid time projection chamber technology, expertise with world leading dark matter and neutrino experiments..

CV: PDF Link


 

Torres, Rodrigo 
Research Assistant

Rodrigo Torres is a

CV: PDF Link


 

Sarnoff, Isaac 
PhD Student 

Isaac is a PhD student who joined the lab in 2020. He received his Bachelors in Physics from Cornell University where he studied Monte Carlo simulations of reionization cosmology  and atmospheric models for climate change, wind turbine optimization, and geoengineering. He is currently interested in dark matter, space exploration, and instrumentation.

CV: PDF Link


 

Pirbhoy, Saarah Fatima 
Research Assistant

Saarah is a research assistant who joined the lab in Nov 2020. She completed her bachelor in science in Physics and a minor in Philosophy from NYU Abu Dhabi. In her undergraduate career, she studied low mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) as part of her capstone project. She helped create an alert system to detect LMXB outbursts in its early stages. She is now working on X-ray detectors and its application on cultural heritage.

CV: PDF Link


 

Mishra, Umang 

Capstone Student 
Umang is a final year undergraduate student at NYU Abu Dhabi studying Physics with minors in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics. Umang's current interests in physics span across experimental research in fundamental physics and quantum information, especially concerning quantum metrology for fundamental physics. His capstone project in the lab is aimed at dark photon detection using a dielectric haloscope coupled with single-photon detectors. He is always eager to assist with the different projects in the lab and enjoys participating in student competitions, science outreach, and exploring new topics in physics.

CV: PDF Link


 

Roberts, Henry

Capstone Student

Henry is a capstone student who joined the lab in May 2020. He is working to complete his Bachelor's in Physics with a minor in Arabic Language in May 2021. His thesis project involves the development of X-Ray Spectroscopic instrumentation and the application of analytical techniques to cultural heritage.

CV: PDF Link


 

Samy, Nour
Capstone Student 
Nour is a Capstone Student who joined the lab in 2019. He is working on completing his Bachelor's in Physics with a minor in Engineering with an expected graduation of May 2021. His capstone project involves data processing and filtering of environmental background radiation measurements and association with weather phenomenon, in addition to the design and development of a second iteration environmentally controlled field detector unit for neutron and gamma radiation.

CV: PDF Link

Oikonomou, Panos
Capstone Student 
Panos is an undergraduate student at NYU Abu Dhabi, majoring in Physics and Math with a minor in Engineering. He joined the lab in the Fall of 2018, working on X-Ray Spectroscopy for cultural heritage, and now he is working on Dark Photon Detection through kinetic mixing in dielectrics. His capstone project focuses on the detection of minimum ionizing particles in Xenon, through their emitted phonons, using nanomechanical resonators. His general research interests include quantum information and error correction, gravity and theoretical applications of geometry in physics, but is always excited to look at something new!

CV: PDF Link

Former Members


 

Benabderrahmane, Mohamed Lotfi 

Currently working as a data scientist at ControlExpert GmbH in Langenfeld, Germany.

Office Phone (UAE): +971 2 628 5573   │   CV:


 

Messina, Marcello 
Senior Research Scientist

Currently working at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy.

Office Phone (UAE): +971 2 628 4262