dr. Mara Senghi Soares

Associate Professor, Faculty of Science, (Astro)-Particles Physics

Personal information

Mara Senghi Soares is of Brazilian origin. She completed her PhD in 2001 at the University of Campinas, located north of São Paulo, establishing her foundation in experimental particle physics. Her career then took her across several leading research institutions in Europe and North America, including positions in Hamburg at DESY, Toronto at York University, and Madrid at CIEMAT.

Since 2020, she has been based at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and has been a staff member at Nikhef. As of November 2023, she holds the position of University Senior Lecturer at VU Amsterdam. She previously served as deputy programme leader for LHCb at Nikhef before being appointed as national programme leader.

Mara Senghi Soares (Nikhef-VU) to lead LHCb group at Nikhef - Nikhef

Research

Dr. Senghi Soares is an experimental particle physicist with a primary focus on the LHCb experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. LHCb is one of four major international experiments at the LHC and is specialised and internationally leading in measuring differences between matter and antimatter.

Her research centres on studying rare processes and CP violation (charge–parity violation), which provides key information about the fundamental asymmetry between matter and antimatter in the universe. This work contributes to our understanding of why the universe is made predominantly of matter rather than annihilating in equal parts with antimatter shortly after the Big Bang.

Mara Senghi Soares - (Astro-) Particle Physics - Department of Physics and Astronomy

Ancillary activities