Research
As a qualified author and member of the ATLAS Collaboration, I specialise in experimental analysis of Higgs bosons in the challenging ttH(H→bb) process at the LHC. My work encompasses rigorous physics analysis and application of contemporary machine learning techniques in novel ways. The search for ttH was successful, with discovery of the process published in 2018.
During my PhD at CERN, I worked on physics analysis in the HTop group, was a lead developer of the ttH(H→bb) analysis framework, was a member of the Athena Job Transforms development group and worked on operations and upgrade of the ATLAS Inner Detector as part of Control Room shift work and ATLAS IBL detector commissioning. Beyond research, I'm dedicated to teaching and mentoring students, and I'm a strong advocate for open science and open software in scientific research. As one of the Irish citizens involved with CERN, I've advocated strongly for Irish membership of CERN with the Irish government.
During my PhD at CERN, I worked on physics analysis in the HTop group, was a lead developer of the ttH(H→bb) analysis framework, was a member of the Athena Job Transforms development group and worked on operations and upgrade of the ATLAS Inner Detector as part of Control Room shift work and ATLAS IBL detector commissioning. Beyond research, I'm dedicated to teaching and mentoring students, and I'm a strong advocate for open science and open software in scientific research. As one of the Irish citizens involved with CERN, I've advocated strongly for Irish membership of CERN with the Irish government.
TTHbbLeptonic Run-2 analysis framework development team (and a video of how we work)
Teaching and tutoring
- Course notes
- Assessment sheet
- GridKa 2016
- GridKa 2015
- GridKa 2014
- C++ Concurrency teaching repository
University of Glasgow: Theoretical Physics 3 (TP3) Computing Laboratory
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology: GridKa School C++ Concurrency
Outreach
Engaging diverse audiences about research has taken me from presentations at the Scottish Parliament to giving tours at CERN, communicating with students and advocating to politicians alike. I'm always happy to talk about my research and to advocate for my teams.
Selected publications
PhD thesis:
The Standard Model Higgs Boson Produced in Association with a t-Quark Pair and Decaying to a b-Quark Pair from LHC Run-2 proton-proton 13 TeV Collisions in ATLAS, W. D. M. Breaden Madden, glathesis:2023-83376, CERN-THESIS-2022-297Status of ttH(bb):
Measurement of Higgs boson decay into b-quarks in associated production with a top-quark pair in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector, The ATLAS Collaboration, ATLAS-CONF-2020-058Discovery of ttH:
Observation of Higgs boson production in association with a top quark pair at the LHC with the ATLAS detector, Physics Letters B, 784, 2018, The ATLAS Collaboration, CERN-EP-2017-291, 10.1016/j.physletb.2018.07.035Evidence of ttH:
Search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a bb pair in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector, Physical Review D, 97 (7), 2018, The ATLAS Collaboration, CERN-EP-2017-291, 10.1103/PhysRevD.97.072016