The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science has awarded York University PhD student Elder Pinzon Guerra of the graduate program in physics & astronomy a postdoctoral fellowship for research in Japan (short-term).
He will be working during the months of October and November with Professor Masashi Yokoyama (University of Tokyo) and Professor Mark Hartz (Kavli IPMU/University of Tokyo) on the final piece of his doctoral thesis, dividing his time between the University of Tokyo and the J-PARC facility in Tokai, Japan.
PhD student Elder Pinzon Guerra with Professor Sampa Bhadra
Pinzon Guerra is a member of the Neutrino High Energy Physics Group led by his supervisor Professor Sampa Bhadra.
“Together we are involved in the T2K (Tokai-to-Kamioka) experiment that studies what is perhaps the most intriguing elementary particle that we know exists: the neutrino,” he said.
“Neutrinos are known for mutating from one kind to another while they travel through space-time. This strange phenomenon is called ‘neutrino oscillations’ and has been established over the last few decades by various experiments. Professors Takaaki Kajita (ICRR, Japan) and Art McDonald (Queen’s University, Canada) were awarded the Nobel Prize in 2015 for their leadership in the field.”
Pinzon Guerra also participated in an experiment at TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for particle physics, measuring the rate that pions interact with a carbon target. This research was published earlier this year in the journal Physical Review, and presented this summer at the International Workshop on Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering in the Few-GeV Region (NuINT) conference at the University of Toronto.
“I would like to thank Professor Bhadra for being a fantastic supervisor and for supporting our group, and Professors Yokoyama and Hartz for their help and support submitting the application for the fellowship process,” he said.
The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture of the Government of Japan, for the purpose of contributing to the advancement of science in all fields.