Justin Kerr is part of one of the world’s largest collaborative scientific experiments.
The third-year PhD candidate at York University's Faculty of Graduate Studies is contributing to the ATLAS experiment, where physicists are studying what the universe is made of, and how it works. ATLAS is a massive particle detector built to observe and record what happens when tiny particles collide at high speeds inside the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator.
The LHC is a 27-kilometre ring of superconducting magnets, cooled to a temperature colder than outer space, that accelerates protons to near the speed of light and then collides them. It is used to study the fundamental building blocks of matter.
Kerr is one of about 6,000 scientists and engineers working on ATLAS, giving him the opportunity for his name to be included on research papers with the world’s best physicists.
Behind Kerr’s success is his advisor, Professor Wendy Taylor, who brings a unique style of nurturing and guidance to her grad students.
“Wendy keeps only two students at a time, so she has a lot of time for us,” says Kerr. “She's also very good at giving us opportunities to take charge... But, I think the most important thing with her as a supervisor is that she actually cares about our well-being. She makes sure we have life-balance.”
Taylor says she has been concerned about equitable treatment of graduate students since her own days in grad school. She thinks her general style of graduate supervision – caring for the whole person rather than just their studies, ensuring they are receiving what they need to excel, making certain they are not working burn-out level hours – should not be considered innovative. That approach ought to be commonplace, she says.
“As a graduate student myself, I did try to live a balanced life. There were other things I wanted to do, not just study, study, study all the time. I think that is healthy,” she says. “I tried to make a career while living a balanced life, and I seem mostly to have done that.”
Taylor says her method for guiding grad students takes into account the unique demands of scientific study.
“In the sciences, you can't just let a student go and pick their own project and come back three years later. You have to teach (science students) technical skills … You really need to be a hands-on supervisor.”
Taylor says it’s crucial to identify a student’s challenges early on and ensure they build the skills they need to progress. To keep on top of this, she meets weekly with the whole team, and individually with each student. These meetings present a natural deadline for students to complete work, so they are able to show and discuss their progress with Taylor.
“Since my group members are all working on different tasks for one bigger project, we work as a tight-knit team, helping each other towards a common goal,” she says.
She also helps students find balance to help them innovate – something that requires time and energy to dig deep into their work.
Taylor says the real innovation is in her students’ work on projects like ATLAS. “Because they’re part of this huge global collaboration, they have amazing opportunities. They get to go to the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland, to the particle physics lab. They get to work with people from all over the world.
“The ATLAS collaboration is so big, there's a lot of student support programs that my students have access to,” adds Taylor, noting they have access to training in software programming, outreach programs and more.
Students also have the opportunity to work on different projects simultaneously as part of their degree – and, in addition to their particle physics research, they can work on modern machine-learning algorithms, big data statistical analysis and state-of-the-art particle detector development and production.
“It’s a unique experience the students in my group get to have,” she says.
With files from Julie Carl