Profile
Carsten Welsch
My CV
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Education:
Goethe University Frankfurt and UC Berkeley
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Qualifications:
Physics Diploma, economics undergraduate (Vordiplom) and PhD
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Work History:
Studied in Frankfurt and UC Berkeley
Research experience in Japan/RIKEN for 3 months
Postdoc in Heidelberg at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics
Fellow at CERN in Geneva (3 years)
Young Investigator Group leader in Heidelberg/GSI
Liverpool/Cockcroft Institute since 2008 -
Current Job:
Head of Physics Department at the University of Liverpool
Leader of the Liverpool Accelerator Science cluster
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Employer:
University of Liverpool
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About Me:
I grew up in Germany, lived in the USA, Japan and Switzerland before coming to Liverpool 14 years ago. I love spending time outdoors with family and friends. 3. Dan in Judo.
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My pronouns are:
he/him
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My Work:
I design and build particle accelerators to help understand nature in all its facets and develop new ways to treat cancer.
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I have been working closely with CERN ever since my CERN Fellowship which I had between 2005 and 2007, although it did involve some international mobility.
I founded my QUASAR Group in the frame of a Helmholtz YIG Award in 2007 and have been leading this Group ever since – currently there are more than 30 members and 18 different nationalities – it really feels every day like the world is working together on common problems; very similar to the experience I made at CERN.
Since November 2008, I am a faculty member at the University of Liverpool and a member of the Cockcroft Institute of Accelerator Science and Technology. In October 2011 I was promoted to Professor of Physics and I also lead the Liverpool Accelerator Science Group. I have been leading the entire Physics Department at Liverpool since 2016.
I am specialized in accelerator design and optimization, the development of underpinning technologies – in particular novel beam diagnostics – as well as fundamental science and industry applications of accelerators, from high energy discovery machines, to antimatter facilities, medical accelerators and ultra-compact accelerators-on-a-chip. CERN is my group’s most important research partner and we are collaborating on almost every accelerator at CERN – from the keV antiproton beams at the AD, all the way to the TeV proton beams in the flagship LHC.
I have been a partner in numerous national and international research projects and have been coordinator of 10 EU projects to date, amongst which the large scale networks DITANET,LA³NET, oPAC, OMA, AVA and EuPRAXIA-DN. I am a member of numerous international advisory committees and a frequent speaker at international workshops and conferences.
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My Typical Day:
Research – Admin – Teaching – Vision – International Collaboration: in a healthy mix.
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As an academic I need to do many things in parallel: carry out cutting edge research, train students and researchers, work with partners internationally, write grant applications to attract funding for our research, publish our results in recognized journals, give talks at workshops and conferences, establish partnership with industry…and much, much more – it never gets boring !
As Head of Department, I am responsible for the research and teaching strategy of my Department, supporting 50 academics, 200 staff and around 500 undergraduate and postgraduate students.
I am proud that I have helped developed Liverpool physics into a UK top10 physics department for the quality of our research and our research environment (REF2021). We were recognized as 3rd in the UK for our overall activities that are either internationally leading or world-class.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
Produce short videos for school children about the latest advances in accelerator research – in particular “novel” accelerators where extremely high gradients are used to accelerate a beam of charged particles.
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The most exciting thing that's happened this year in my research area:
My Group has been contributing to the conceptual design reports of two potentially revolutionary accelerators:
- A future circular collider (FCC) – a 100 km circumference accelerator that would collide particles at unprecedented energies;
- A plasma wakefield accelerator with industry beam quality (EuPRAXIA) which would enable new applications at a facility with significantly reduced footprint
Both have a clear long-term vision and offer huge potential for discoveries and ground-breaking applications.
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My latest work:
We are designing a special monitor that can characterize the beam of the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider. There will be an upgrade to the world’s largest and highest energy accelerator which will make it even more powerful – so powerful, that the current diagnostics to fully characterize the proton beam will no longer work.
We are using a supersonic jet which we cross with the main LHC beam to measure the proton beam – (almost) without touching it. The monitor is a very sophisticated piece of equipment and we are excited to contribute this to the HL-LHC.
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My favourite misconception about my area of science:
That accelerators/particle physics offer no “real world” benefits.
Our research has enabled
- ion beam cancer therapy
- the internet
- high field magnets as they are used in hospitals for MRI etc
- medical imaging techniques, such as PET
- airport security scanners
- and much much more