Chris Parkes is an experimental particle physicist focussing on the design and construction of large-scale detector systems and the analysis of the data from these. His major scientific contributions include precision studies of differences in the behaviour of matter and antimatter, known as CP-violation, and the design of advanced silicon-based tracking detectors. He has been a long-term member and leader of the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) collaboration at the LHC at CERN; he was deputy Spokesperson and Spokesperson from 2017 to 2023. He was an initiator of the concept for a second-generation experimental apparatus, the LHCb Upgrade, and led the collaboration through its construction, installation and first operations. Early in his career he led measurements of the mass, and other properties, of the W boson at the DELPHI experiment at CERN.
The LHCb collaboration was awarded a share of the Breakthrough Prize in 2025. Chris is currently head of the Physics and Astronomy Department at the University of Manchester.
Professional position
- Professor of Experimental Particle Physics, Department Of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester
Subject groups
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Astronomy and Physics
Elementary particle physics, Semi-conductors
