I am a high energy particle physicist, with passion to build particle detectors, design their hardware/software readout and analyze the resulting data. My experiences include building large scale detectors, such as the CsI End Cap calorimeters on CLEOIII to small scale detectors like veto scintillation detectors on CDMSII. I also have extensive experience in developing the data acquisition system for these detectors, from the readout hardware to the software. When I am not building hardware or developing its DAQ, I am engrossed in the data analysis from these experiments. I feel fortunate to have experienced experimental particle physics from both a large scale (CLEO) and a small scale (CDMS) and have realized that the impact of the physics result is more important than the size of the experiment!

I had worked on the CLEO e⁺e^- collider experiment during my graduate years as well as beginning post doc year. I spent the first part of my life on CLEO building the CsI end cap calorimter detectors and commissioning them, over a 3 year period. The second part of my stay on CLEO was involved in various two-photon fusion physics analysis projects. Two-photon fusion physics provides a clean playing field for understanding various QCD phenomena, especially with the charmonium sector. My reserach also involved doing anti-search for glue ball candidates in two-photon fusion. I was instrumental in establishing various important proeperties of all charmonium states, such as η_c, χ_c0 and χ_c2.

Currently, I work on the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) experiment, operating in the Soudan mines. CDMS is the world's most sensitive direct detection experiment with a sensitivity almost an order of magnitude better than the next best experiment. I have made critical contribution to various aspects of the CDMS experiment, from the VETO scintillator system to the Data Acquisition hardware/software system. I have designed and implemented the cutting edge remote controlled Data Acquisition (DAQ) system written in JAVA/C++/CORBA, which enables the experimenters to take data and monitor the system 24x7, despite of limited weekday access to the mine based experiment. I also play the leading role in data analysis and background analysis efforts. I have developed an advanced analysis framework based on likelihood rejectrion/selection of background/signal events that provides almost 4 times better efficiency/rejection performance compared to the earlier analysis. One of my biggest contributions to CDMS, besides the DAQ system, is devising a novel analysis technique to identify the primary source of the β background for the CDMS detectors as ²¹⁰Pb, which comes from Radon contamination. This had been an illusive search in the past due to the very difficult nature of the extremely small amount of contamination level.

Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) experiment is the world's leading experiment performing a search for the illusive dark matter using direct detection technique. The most likely candidate for the primordial dark matter is the Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) which has weak interaction cross-section and has mass of the order of few tens of GeVs. Supersymmetry restored at weak scale gives rise to a natural candidate for the lightest supersymmetric particle neutralino, which has weak interaction with matter. Coincidentally, or perhaps as deeper clue, current abundance of the dark matter combined with equilibrium condition of annihilation of dark matter into ordinary matter also gives rise to a weak interaction cross-section. This incredible convergence of astrophysical evidence and particle physics evidence makes neutralino WIMP the best candidate for the dark matter.

The next generation experiment, SuperCDMS, with an intial 25Kg target mass, is in its development phase. Installation at SNOLab in Canada will begin soon and data taking is expected to occur sometime in 2010. The neutron background will be negligible in the deeper SNOLab site, compared to the Soudan site for CDMS.