Picture of Thomas M. Cormier
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's largest and most powerful particle collider, is at The European Laboratory for Nuclear Research CERN. Thomas M. Cormier, who heads the Heavy Ion Research Group at ORNL, is leading an upgrade of the electromagnetic calorimeter used in ALICE (A large Ion Collider Experiment). The 10000 metric ton, 50-foot high ALICE system is used to detect high-energy collisions of lead ions which create tiny samples of matter at energy densities not seen in the Universe since microseconds after Big Bang.