Martin White

Professor Martin White

Professor

School of Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences

Faculty of Sciences, Engineering and Technology

Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.


I work as a particle astrophysicist, using searches in astrophysics and particle physics experiments to find and test new theories of what the universe is made of and how it came to be. This includes:

  • Co-leading the GAMBIT collaboration, a team of approximately 70 international particle and astrophysicists who perform detailed statistical fits of new physics models. These include new models of dark matter, and will soon include cosmological models and models that explain neutrino masses.
  • Co-leading the DarkMachines initiative, that is developing new applications of machine learning techniques in dark matter research.
  • Searches for new particles at the Large Hadron Collider, a giant particle accelerator located at CERN, Geneva. As a member of the ATLAS experiment, I search for supersymmetric particles and new Higgs-like particles, and I contribute to helping the middle of the detector function smoothly.
  • Working to improve the theoretical models of the new signals that we search for at the LHC, and in dark matter experiments
  • Working in the Australian Cherenkov Telescope Array consortium, who are participating in the building of a new, giant ground-based array of Cherenkov telescopes that are used to hunt for gamma rays from space. I am designing future dark matter searches, and using machine learning to improve gamma ray reconstruction.

Outside of physics, I founded and lead the University of Adelaide Data Analytics Working Group, which exists to share data science techniques between scientific disciplines. Current projects include using machine learning to find illegal wildlife trades in global shipping containers, and developing new techniques for automated feature detection in cybersecurity applications.

I am also highly involved in science outreach programmes including:

  • Regular visits to Australian schools
  • Co-author and co-star of the BBC-sponsored RiAus show "The Science of Fiction: Dr Who" that toured Australian theatres in 2014, and returned at the BBC Australian Dr Who festival in 2016.
  • Regular print, radio and TV appearances
  • A recent book in the UK Institute of Physics "Physics World Discovery" series on "What's Next For Collider Physics?".

In the following two lectures, I cover my research work at high school level:

  • Appointments

    Date Position Institution name
    2022 - ongoing Professor University of Adelaide
    2020 - 2022 Interim Deputy Dean Research (Faculty of Sciences) University of Adelaide
    2019 - ongoing Associate Professor University of Adelaide
    2015 - ongoing ARC Future Fellow University of Adelaide
    2013 - 2015 Lecturer University of Adelaide
    2010 - 2013 Research Associate University of Melbourne
    2006 - 2010 Research Associate University of Cambridge
    2002 - 2002 Research intern Smartbead Technologies
  • Education

    Date Institution name Country Title
    2008 University of Cambridge United Kingdom PhD
    2003 University of Cambridge United Kingdom MSc

2023: CI, Analytics for the Australian Grains Industry, GRDC, $17.1M

2023: CI, ARC LE230100085: Enabling the future of the Australian collider physics program, $2.827M

2022: Lead CI, Researcher agreement for AI in Cybersecurity, Department of Defence, $1.2M

2022: CI, Multi-Party Collaborative Project for Three Case Studies of Mass Influencing Organisations, Department of Defence, $419,990

2022: Lead CI, Searching for New Particles From the Attoscale to the Exascale with GAMBIT, Pawsey Supercomputing Centre, $188,000

2021: CI, ARC DP220100007: New Techniques for New Physics Searches at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, $611,667

2021: CI, ARC LE210100098: Enabling the Future of the Australian Collider Physics Program, $1.974M

2020: CI on ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics, $35,000,000

2018: CI, ARC LE190100140: Enabling the future of the Australian collider physics program, $864,000

2017: Lead CI, DP180102209: Optimising the search for the next discovery in particle physics, $664,320

2017: AIP delegate for Science Meets Parliament, Canberra

2016: CI, ARC LE170100104: The Cherenkov Telescope Array - Production phase, $1,390,000

2016: France-Australia fellowship from the Australian Academy of Science, $4800

2015: Finalist, South Australian Science Excellence Awards

2015: Tall Poppy Award, Australian Institute of Policy and Science

2015: CI, ARC LE150100070, The Cherenkov Telescope Array, $270,000

2014: University of Adelaide DVCR support grant, $25,000

2014: Sole CI, ARC FT140100244, A Comprehensive Approach to Dark Matter Searches: the Cherenkov Telescope Array, IceCube and the Large Hadron Collider, $757,549

2013: University of Adelaide start up grant, $20,000

2011: University of Melbourne Early Career Grant, $14,000

Teaching picture 1

Previous Undergraduate teaching

I have previously taught the following undergraduate courses (teaching now curtailed due to ARC Future Fellowship):

PHYSICS 1200 - Physics IB: Basic review of special relativity and an introduction to quantum mechanics. See my course notes here.

PHYSICS 2510 - Physics IIA: Introductory course covering experimental evidence for quantum mechanics, scattering and tunnelling in 1D, the harmonic oscillator and quantum mechanics in 3D. See my course notes here.

PHYSICS 7008 - Gauge Theory: A survey course on Gauge Field Theory at honours level, including the gauge principle and QED, non-abelian gauge theories, geometric interpretations of gauge invariance, Wilson lines and Wilson loops, QCD, the electroweak model and the Higgs mechanism, path integral approach to QFT, and renormalisation (mostly in QED). See my course notes here.

SCIENCE 2300 - Principles & Practice of Research (Advanced) II: Tutorials on the Higgs boson discovery as part of a survey course on recent scientific developments for 2nd year undergraduates.

Current Undergraduate Teaching

SCIENCE 1500 - Introductory Data Science: Wide-ranging survey course on data science methods, taught using practical examples from the sciences, medicine and business. Combines an innovative "flipped-classroom" workshop format with hands-on exercises in Microsoft Excel.

PHYSICS 7009 - General Relativity: An introduction to differential geometry and general relativity, including elements of classical field theory. See my course notes here.

SCIENCE 3100 - Principles & Practice of Research (Advanced) III: Advanced projects for third year undergraduates in topics relevant to the research frontier, Previous topics have included current research problems in supersymmetry, dark matter, collider physics and data science.

Graduate teaching

  • I have previously given lectures at the annual schools of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Particle Physics at the Terascale, covering LHC physics and Monte Carlo techniques.
  • In 2016, I delivered three lectures on experimental searches for supersymmetry at the SUSY 2016 pre-school (slides available here).

High school teaching

  • I have given a large number of lectures to high school students, both at CERN and in Australia. This includes a tour of Tasmanian schools in 2011 sponsored  by the Australian Institute of Physics. You are welcome to email me and request a lecture for your school on particle physics or cosmology.
  • Current Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)

    Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
    2024 Principal Supervisor Dark Matter Theory and Physics Beyond the Standard Model Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Mr Ewan Neil Verschuer Wallace
    2024 Principal Supervisor Searching for New Physics with the Cherenkov Telescope Array Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Mr Hayden Alexander James
    2024 Co-Supervisor Beyond the Standard Model physics with the ATLAS Experiment at the CERN LHC Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Camron Stephen Alley
    2023 Principal Supervisor Searching for Beyond the Standard Model Physics With the ATLAS experiment utilising Machine Learning Algorithms Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Matthew James Green
    2023 Co-Supervisor Searches for New Physics Beyond the Standard Model with the ATLAS Detector Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Aman Mukesh Desai
    2022 Co-Supervisor Studying rare processes containing bottom quarks at the Large Hadron Collider Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Dr Matthew Peter Fewell
    2022 Co-Supervisor Artificially-Intelligent Feature Mining for Cyber Defence Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Mr Alexander Rohl
    2022 Co-Supervisor Beyond the Standard Model physics with the ATLAS experiment Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Hitarthi Pandya
    2022 Co-Supervisor Likelihood-Free Inference in Gamma-Ray Astronomy - Prospects of an Inference-based Analysis for Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescopes Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Mr Scarlet Betterman
    2021 Co-Supervisor Studies in QCD Phenomenology Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Nicholas Timothy Hunt-Smith
    2020 Principal Supervisor High energy and beyond-Standard Model physics Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Edmund Xiang Lin Ting
    2018 Principal Supervisor Beyond the Standard Model Physics Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Nicholas Dean Leerdam
  • Past Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)

    Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
    2020 - 2023 Co-Supervisor A study of supersymmetric decaying dark matter models Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Miss Meera Deshpande
    2020 - 2023 Principal Supervisor Investigation of Two-Higgs-Doublet Models Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Mr Alexander Sean Woodcock
    2019 - 2021 Principal Supervisor Novel Networks in Collider Searches for New Physics Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Miss Anna Jane Mullin
    2019 - 2022 Principal Supervisor Novel Data Analysis Techniques for BSM Physics Applications Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Adam George Leinweber
    2019 - 2023 Co-Supervisor Measurement of Semileptonic B Decays and Global Fits of Leptoquark Models Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Philip Timothy Grace
    2018 - 2020 Co-Supervisor Searching for Four Top Quarks with the ATLAS Detector Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Ms Emily Kathleen Filmer
    2018 - 2021 Co-Supervisor Bayesian and Frequentist Global Fits of Minimal 4D Composite Higgs Models Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Mr Ethan Nicholas Carragher
    2018 - 2020 Co-Supervisor Fast Simulation and a Search for Four-top-quark Production with the ATLAS Experiment Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Mr Albert Xing Yi Kong
    2017 - 2021 Co-Supervisor Jigsaws Falling into Place: Advances in Event Reconstruction and
    Electroweak Supersymmetry at ATLAS
    Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Abhishek Sharma
    2017 - 2022 Co-Supervisor Searches for New Physics at the Large Hadron Collider Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Riley Richard Geoffrey Patrick
    2017 - 2019 Principal Supervisor Template Functional Forms for the Interpretation of Resonance Search Results at the Large Hadron Collider Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Mr Edmund Xiang Lin Ting
    2016 - 2018 Principal Supervisor Investigating the Effect of Primordial Black Hole Hawking Radiation on the Cosmic Microwave Background Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Mr Harry David Poulter
    2016 - 2020 Co-Supervisor Search for Supersymmetric Electroweak Production and the Measurement of Higgs Production Cross-sections at the ATLAS Experiment Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Jason Lea Oliver
    2016 - 2019 Co-Supervisor Oscillations and Sterile Neutrinos Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Zachary Maxwell Matthews
    2016 - 2020 Co-Supervisor On the detection of dark matter: New prospects for a multi-component dark sector and global fits of Pseudo-Nambu Goldstone dark matter Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Andre Scaffidi
    2015 - 2018 Principal Supervisor Investigation of Higgs Portal Dark Matter Models: From Collider, Indirect and Direct Searches to Electroweak Baryogenesis Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Ankit Beniwal
    2015 - 2019 Co-Supervisor The Landscape of Composite Higgs Models Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Daniel Thomas Murnane
    2015 - 2018 Co-Supervisor Search for Supersymmetry with the ATLAS Detector using the Recursive Jigsaw Technique in Zero Lepton Final States Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Anum Qureshi
    2015 - 2020 Co-Supervisor Two-Higgs-Doublet Models: A Global Study Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Filip Rajec
    2015 - 2021 Co-Supervisor Search for Supersymmetry in Final States with 2 or 3 Leptons with Data Collected by the ATLAS Experiment Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Damir Duvnjak
    2014 - 2016 Co-Supervisor Collider Constraints Applied to Simplified Models of Dark Matter Fitted to the Fermi-LAT Gamma Ray Excess using Bayesian Techniques Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Mr Guy Hamilton Pitman
    2014 - 2016 Co-Supervisor On the Detection of Dark Matter: Likelihoods and Limits on Spin-independent and Spin-dependent WIMP Couplings and the Implementation of Radiative Muon Decays in Dark Matter Analyses Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Mr Andre Scaffidi
    2014 - 2018 Co-Supervisor Probing Supersymmetry with Recursive Jigsaw Reconstruction Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Marco Santoni
    2014 - 2017 Co-Supervisor Aspects of E6 Inspired Supersymmetric Models Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dylan Harries
  • Other Supervision Activities

    Date Role Research Topic Location Program Supervision Type Student Load Student Name
    2015 - ongoing Co-Supervisor Dark Matter in Extended Higgs Scenarios University of Adelaide Physics PhD Doctorate Full Time Filip Rajec
  • Position: Professor
  • Phone: 83130624
  • Email: martin.white@adelaide.edu.au
  • Fax: 83134380
  • Campus: North Terrace
  • Building: Physics, floor First Floor
  • Room: 111
  • Org Unit: Physics

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