Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam researcher Mara Senghi Soares is national program leader for the LHCb experiment at Nikhef as of Nov. 1. Soares takes over the position from Nikhef staff member Marcel Merk.
LHCb is one of four major international experiments at CERN at the LHC accelerator in Geneva. The experiment is specialized and leading in measuring differences between antimatter and matter. Through Nikhef, the Netherlands is an important partner in the research project, both in detector construction and data analysis.
The Dutch LHCb program is divided between the NWOi institute Nikhef and three universities: VU Amsterdam, Maastricht and Groningen. Mara Senghi Soares will coordinate the activities of the research groups, and represent the Netherlands within LHCb.
Mara Senghi Soares is of Brazilian origin. She received her PhD in 2001 from the University of Campinas, north of Sao Paulo, and subsequently worked in Hamburg (DESY), Toronto (York) and Madrid (CIEMAT), among other places.
Since 2020, she has been at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Nikhef staff member. As of November 1, she is University Senior Lecturer at the VU.
Senghi Soares was already deputy program leader at LHCb. She is now the second female program leader at Nikhef. She takes over the position from LHCb physicist Marcel Merk of formerly VU and now Maastricht University.
Former LHCb physics coordinator Niels Tuning becomes the new Nikhef deputy program leader from his post at LHCb in Geneva.
