Gavin Salam is a theoretical particle physicist. His main research focus is on the strong force (Quantum Chromodynamics – QCD). He is interested in the ways in which it can be exploited to cast light on the other fundamental particle interactions, notably the sector associated with the Higgs boson, and also how it can be harnessed to search for possible new particles.
He has made significant contributions to the understanding of the structure of the proton and of ‘jets’, the signatures of quarks and gluons produced in high-energy collisions. He invented the most widely used approach for identifying jets at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. His main current research interest is how to use first-principles understanding of QCD to simulate the pattern of production of hundreds of hadrons that takes place in almost every high-energy collision.
He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1996. After postdoctoral fellowships in Milan and at CERN, he joined the CNRS in Paris in 2000 and also held a research appointment at Princeton University from 2010 to 2012. Since 2010 he has been a staff member of CERN’s Theoretical Physics Department and in 2018 took up positions as Royal Society Research Professor at the University of Oxford and Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College. He was awarded the Silver Medal of the CNRS in 2010.
Professional position
- Royal Society Research Professor, Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford
- Senior Research Fellow, All Souls College, University of Oxford
Subject groups
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Astronomy and Physics
Elementary particle physics
