Career path
I am a Full Professor (UHD1) at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam as well as Staff member at the Theory group of Nikhef. I did my undergraduate studies at the Universitat de Barcelona, followed by a Ph. D. thesis in 2006 under the supervision of Profs. Jose Ignacio Latorre and Stefano Forte. I was then postdoctoral researcher at LPTHE in Paris VI-VII, the University of Milano and INFN, and at the Theory Department of CERN as a Marie Curie Fellow. In 2014 I joined the University of Oxford faculty as STFC Rutherford Fellow in Rudolf Peierls for Theoretical Physics at the Physics Department and lecturer at Balliol College. Then in autumm 2016 I joined the VU (as member of the APP section) and Nikhef as staff member.
Research interests
My research programs focuses on precision physics at high-energy particle colliders such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva. Specific research lines include:
- Mapping the proton and nuclear structure in terms of the parton distributions functions (PDFs)
- Jet reconstruction and substructure
- Global analyses in the Effective Field Theory framework as part of the SMEFiT initiative
- Exploiting synergies between particle and high-energy astroparticle physics, such as cosmic rays and UHE neutrinos
- Opportunities for Beyond the Standard Model searches from precision observables.
Some background material about my research interests can be found here.
Research track record
An updated list of my publications can be obtained from the Inspire database as well as from my Google Scholar profile. My research as PI has been funded by a number of grants and fellowships, including an ERC Starting Grant, and STFC Rutherford Fellowship, NWO Physics Projectruimte and ENW-KLEIN-2, as well as by an eScience Center ASDI project. I am frequently invited to give talks and colloquia at national and international conferences, and my research results have been highlighted in both Dutch (De Volkskrant, New Scientist) and international (Science News, Quanta, Scientific American) outlets.
Teaching, Supervision, and Management
I have extensive experience at all levels from bachelor and master to graduate courses and obtained my Senior Teaching Qualification (SKO) certification in 2019. I am currently the coordinator and instructor of two courses in the Physics and Astronomy bachelor, "Quantum Mechanics 2" and "Machine Learning", and one in the Medische Natuurwetenschappen (MNW) bachelor, "from Quantum to Molecule". My teaching philosophy is based on always preparing detailed teaching materials, from self-contained lecture notes to Python notebooks, to facilitate student learning. I am also Bachelor and Internship Coordinator and member of the OLC of MNW. I serve in Nikhef's Scientific Advisory Council, the Governing Board of the DRSTP graduate school, the NWO-Vidi and NWO-KLEIN grant assessment committees, and Nikhef's Education Committee overseeing training activities for PhD students.
More information can be found in my personal website, http://www.juanrojo.com/.
