Featured Student: Madison Levagood

What is your field of study and when will you graduate?

My degree is in Combined Honours Physics and Astronomy; I will graduate May 2027. 

Why did you choose to enroll in Co-op?

I chose to pursue this degree out of a love for the field, as well as a desire to spend the remainder of my working life in research.

Co-op provided an opportunity for me to start this part of my career early and I certainly wasn't going to turn that down. Additionally, I deemed it wise for me to figure out early on if this was really what I wanted out of my career, as opposed to finishing an entire degree, only to later realise I didn't enjoy research as much as I thought I would. 

As it turns out, Co-op did an excellent job at cementing my desire to go into physics research in the future. 

Which positions did you work during Co-op?

I've completed a total of three Co-op terms, spent consecutively with the UBC Physics and Astronomy ATLAS group, working on particle detector hardware for the upcoming Inner Tracker of the ATLAS experiment, which is located at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

Wow, that sounds like impactful work. Are you able to share more about working with particle detector hardware for the upcoming Inner Tracker of the ATLAS experiment? What is it and how does it work? As well, how will this be used with the Hadron Collider at CERN?

So, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a particle accelerator located at CERN, just outside of Geneva, Switzerland. 

Protons (and occasionally heavy ions) speed around the circular accelerator at velocities approaching the speed of light (particles reach speeds of up to 0.999999991 times the speed of light). 

These particles are smashed into each other and other particles can be created in the collision, then subsequently: detected. To this endeavor, there are a series of detector experiments stationed around the accelerator. One such experiment is ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS). ATLAS (along with the CMS detector) was responsible for detecting the Higgs Boson in 2012. 

The LHC is slated to undergo an upgrade to become the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC), wherein the number of collisions is anticipated to increase tenfold. This means a higher radiation detector environment and more convoluted particle tracking. Thus, ATLAS is also undergoing an upgrade, to have the capacity to handle the increased number of collisions. 

The innermost portion of the detector, currently called the Inner Detector, is being replaced with the new silicon Inner Tracker (ITk), amongst many other changes. The ITk can be further subdivided into layers. The innermost layers (nearest the beamline, where the particles collide) are Pixel layers and the subsequent outer layers are Strips layers – I work with the latter. 

These layers are composed of small functional units called modules, which come equipped with a sensor, power board and readout electronics. At UBC, we receive these modules for quality control testing, which I am responsible for. So, I look at them under a microscope, run electrical tests and thermal cycle them (+20C to -35C, back and forth, ten times, taking electrical tests at each temperature extreme), in search of performance defects. 

Some of these defects turn out to be simple - maybe the module was damaged during assembly or something - and that's that. Sometimes, however, there are more systemic and concerning, problems. One of these defects, termed Cold Noise, has been one focus of my research.

Cold Noise concerns clusters of noisy channels that only appear, or significantly worsen, at cold temperatures. This is a troubling phenomenon, since it can impact signal-to-noise ratio in the detector (which is run cold), making particle tracking much more challenging. 

The modules themselves work because of reverse-biased diodes, which is when a charged particle passes by the sensor and generates a short blip of current, which then gets passed to chips on the modules. If the signal is over a certain threshold, it reads as a "hit", if it is under, it reads it as "no-hit". What this means is that, after these chips, everything one can read out from a module is simply a collection of 1s and 0s; no information regarding the strength of the initial signal in a given channel is relayed. 

Then, physicists (in a different area of research on the project to my own) use these 1s and 0s to figure out which particles were picked up by the sensor, which is pretty incredible in my opinion!

Can you share your favourite experience while in Co-op?

In September of 2024, I had the pleasure of attending a week-long conference in Liverpool, England, where I gave a talk on some of the research I had been working on. It was a wonderful opportunity to learn about the research being done globally in an area of physics that I have grown to love a great deal, as well as to meet an incredible group of researchers from institutes worldwide.

What was your best achievement in Co-op?

I think, given the "small steps towards a big goal" nature of my work, that it is challenging to put my finger on one thing and call it my best achievement. 

Abstractly, the achievement (if you wish to call it that) that I hold in the highest regard is the difference in my understanding of my area of research now, as compared to when I first walked through the doors of the UBC ATLAS office. 

Like many in their first research position, it seemed to be a massive learning curve when I first started, but with the truly priceless support of my supervisor, I feel that I've gotten over that initial curve and can now simply learn things that I need to learn as they come.

What did you feel most challenged by and how did you overcome it?

Part of my work is testing small functional units of a particle detector, as part of a quality control procedure to look for performance defects. 

This process is quite simple when you've done it enough times, but when you're first learning can feel a bit like there are a hundred things to do. The method by which you do each of these things has an exception when a certain factor is present and each of these exceptions has its own subsequent exceptions. 

With practice, more practice, superb supervision and general stubbornness — it has become second nature. 

How do you feel Co-op helped your personal growth?

Though I had my share of work experience prior to Co-op, this was my first time working in academia. 

There are obvious differences between working in, say, sales, versus working in physics; I don't need to know Python to sell a shirt, but those differences turn out to be the easiest to adapt to and have little impact on one's growth as a person. It's factors like having to be self-motivated, having to problem solve in a domain with which you may have very little familiarity and having more than one goal in your work that encourage personal growth. 

More than anything, it encourages a mentality to just dive into a problem you may not initially understand, and be willing to push through the proverbial weeds until you reach a solution. 

How do you feel Co-op has helped your career?

For starters, it has defined it; I enjoyed my Co-op placement so much that I've decided that I would like to work in this area of physics long-term. 

It has given me experience in talk-giving, paper-writing, and all sorts of coding and technical skills I never would have dreamed of before I started here. It has given me an understanding of what it actually means to work in research, and how to navigate that work environment. Also, just in terms of practicality, this placement has had several "resume-boosting" factors (eg. publications, talks) associated with it, which I am grateful for preemptively for when I apply to subsequent placements and graduate school.

Which supports from the Co-op program (workshops, practice interviews, etc.) do you feel best supported you? Can you talk about the direct impact on your career?

I very much appreciate my Co-op coordinator's willingness to go over my resume. 

As I said, I had never worked in academia before this position and had no idea what an academic resume should look like, or what I was supposed to put on it. 

Both his instruction in this matter, and subsequent read-over of my drafts, gave me much more confidence when applying to positions, including the one I went on to spend a year at. 

What advice would you offer to future Co-op students?

Apply to everything that seems interesting to you. 

You don't want to spend a lot of time doing something you don't enjoy, but if you think you could find the work interesting, apply for it. The competition for many positions is steep, especially for the positions that would be interesting to a large number of people, so you will want to get out as many applications as you can. Once you start a work term, take the opportunity to learn everything you can about the area you work in. Often, it just gets more interesting the more you learn about it. 

Finally, work ethic! Have it. You get out what you put in with things like this. You're not always going to know everything about the task you're trying to accomplish. You're not always going to have just the right skillset to do the specific thing you want to do. But, if you've got a good work ethic and the right people to ask questions of when you need to, you'll figure it out eventually. 

What are you looking forward to after graduation?

Graduate school. UBC Science Co-op and the UBC ATLAS group have given me the opportunity to explore an area of research that I find incredibly compelling, and I hope to continue in this area going forward. 

I'd like to extend a heartfelt thanks to Dr. Cole Helling, Professor Colin Gay, Professor Allison Lister and the entirety of the UBC ATLAS group, as well as Professor Luise Poley (TRIUMF, SFU), and my co-op coordinator Professor Javed Iqbal, all of whom were instrumental to the quality of my experiences in the Co-op program.