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Dr. Ben Morgan

Research

I am a Senior Research Fellow in the Elementary Particle Physics group at Warwick.

As the Research Software Engineer for EPP, my research is focused on computational methods and software development to support EPP's research programme. My primary project is developing detector simulation codes to efficiently utilise modern compute architectures such as GPGPUs under the UK's ExCALIBUR high priority use cases programme. This is an active area of research, and collaboration with researchers at CERN and in the US is ongoing.

I am also contributing to EPP's ATLAS and Detector Development programmes. Within ATLAS, I am working on optimising the performance of simulations ATLAS detector using the Geant4 toolkit within the experiment's Athena software. My main project in Detector Development is the SuperNEMO Double Beta Decay Search Experiment, where I am leading its Software Management group in developing core applications, reconstruction algorithms, and analysis pipelines. I am also contributing to the group's work for the LEGEND Double Beta Decay Search Experiment on background modelling.

My doctorate was on direct searches for particle dark matter, where I published a number of papers on the phenomenology of detectors with directional sensitivity.

Software Development

As the Research Software Engineer for EPP, I support the computing needs of the group in software development and deployment together with hardware support through SCRTP. I take a broad interest in the development of software for scientific research, especially in the areas of architectural design, compilers, build tools and packaging, cross-platform portability and user interface design.

I contribute to the Geant4 Project, a C++ toolkit for the simulation of particle detectors used in HEP, Space Science, Medicine and many other fields. You can also find some personal projects on my GitHub Profile.

I'm also involved in the HEP Software Foundation to facilitate communication and coordination on software and computing topics across HEP and other scientific fields. I co-convened the Software Tools and Packaging Working Group from 2017-2020, and now co-convene the Detector Simulation Working Group. The HSF covers a wide range of topics with regular meetings and workshops, and input to and engagement with these from all researchers in HEP and the broader scientific community is welcomed!

Teaching

I contributed to a graduate course in Linux and C++ programming for particle physicists as part of the Spring Term of the Midlands Physics Alliance Graduate School. A range of resources for students taking these courses together with hands on sessions introducing programming is available.

I am also building an interest in software and computing training for research through the HSF Training Working Group and Curriculum, along with the broader efforts in Software Carpentry.

Write To:

Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL

Contact Details:

Office: P546
Telephone:
+44 (0)24 765 74360
Fax:
+44 (0)24 761 50897

Links:

EPP Home Page

Geant4 Toolkit

GitHub Projects

HEP Software Foundation

Software Sustainability Institute

Standard C++

Python Programming Language