Mercedes Paniccia

I am a Senior Research Associate at University of Geneva in the Space AstroParticle Physics group. I have studied Physics at University of Rome “La Sapienza” in Italy, where I have obtained a Master’s degree in Particle Physics presenting a thesis on search for the Higgs boson with the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. After graduation, I have pursued my studies in AstroParticle Physics as a PhD student at University of Geneva, working in the AMS space experiment. I have obtained a PhD in Physics with a study of solar activity effects on cosmic-ray fluxes detected in near-Earth space by the prototype AMS-01 detector. I have contributed to the construction of the semiconductor detectors for the AMS-02 Silicon Tracker, and to the calibration and the commissioning of the electromagnetic calorimeter of the same experiment. I have also worked on the detection of neutrino oscillations at the OPERA experiment in Italy. I am currently actively engaged in university teaching, while carrying my research on cosmic rays with the AMS-02 experiment. I am leading the AMS Geneva group supervising the analysis work of three PhD students. Our research is currently focusing on measuring cosmic-ray nuclei and light isotopes spectra with the aim of constraining cosmic-ray propagation models to assess the background to indirect Dark Matter searches.