Joshua Clercx
17 December 2021
Photo: Joshua Clercx
Joshua Clercx grew up in Ghent, Belgium, where he graduated from Ghent University in 2019. In his thesis, “Analysis of top quark pair production in association with a Z boson in the dilepton channel at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV at CMS”, he examined the process of ttZ decaying to 2 leptons at the CMS detector.
What is the topic of your research?
I’m in the Higgs group and the official topic of my research is “Combination of Higgs boson measurements using Simplified Template Cross Sections at the ATLAS experiment”. My supervisor is Prof. Dr. Kerstin Tackmann. In collaboration with the other “Higgs-combination-people”, I’m coordinating and gathering results from other groups who research specific production and decay mechanisms of the Higgs boson. We merge these individual results to combined results which are more precise and more powerful from a general discovery point-of-view. The process of combining is not as trivial as it sounds, since data from many different groups needs to be harmonized. Also, there are many different models and interpretations that can be used to look at the combined results. The Simplified Template Cross Sections (or STXS) part of my topic is related to the resolution in which the individual datasets are given to us.
What fascinates you about your research focus?
I grew up being very interested in physics, and I was in high school during several of the LHC’s milestones, including the discovery of the Higgs boson. It’s exciting to me that a decade later I’m working on the exact things that I was so in awe of. Research into the Higgs boson could really open doors to physics beyond the standard model. In general, it’s thrilling to be working pretty much at the edge of human knowledge.
What do you like about the cluster Quantum Universe?
It’s nice to have regular QU Days where you can hear about other people’s research and widen your own scope a little bit. Otherwise, especially with the pandemic, there isn’t as much interaction, and you would just focus on the topics that you’re working on. I think it’s important to learn about other research because you never know when you’ll discover something else that really interests you or where you might end up in a few years.
What do you like to do in your free time?
I sing and I play several instruments that I’m all pretty bad at, but I just really enjoy making and listening to music! In non-pandemic times, I usually try to travel whenever I can and whenever my budget allows me to. I like experiencing other cultures, for example trying local foods. I also really enjoy cooking!