Opening remarks

Andy Parker is a Professor of High Energy Physics at Cambridge University, with over 500 publications on aspects of particle physics and other topics. His current research interests involve experiments to reveal new physics such as extra space dimensions, quantum-sized black holes, and supersymmetry. He is a founder of the ATLAS experiment for the Large Hadron Collider, and for 6 years he was the project leader for the ATLAS Inner Detector and a member of the Executive Board. His technical work has included the development of silicon detectors, fast electronics and large software systems, as well as data analysis and pattern recognition. He has served in various roles in ATLAS, including as UK Physics Coordinator and chair of the Publications Committee.

He has worked with the Oncology Department on computational methods for radiotherapy, including the Voxtox and Radnet projects. He was a Fellow and then Staff Physicist at CERN from 1982-1989 and briefly a Stagiere Etranger at the Centre des Etudes Nucleaire, Saclay, Paris before being appointed as a Lecturer in Cambridge in 1989. He was made a Professor in 2004 and served as Deputy Head of Department (Finance and Resources) from 2010-2013 before becoming Head of Department. He has served on numerous committees for CERN, the UK Research Councils, international funding agencies and the University. He was awarded the Pilkington Prize for excellence in teaching in 1997. He is currently a member of the International Advisory Board for the Future Circular Collider and a member of the Research Assessment Physical Sciences Panel for Hong Kong. He is a Science Partner with Ahren Investment Capital.

Pietro obtained a Laurea in Physics, in Milan (1999) before joining the Cavendish Lab for his PhD (2003). He initially worked on interface science, and then became interested in lipid membranes in his post-doc, at the Nanoscience Center, before returning to the Cavendish with an Oppenheimer Research Fellowship (2004-2007). He began working with biological cells and optical trapping. In 2006 he was appointed University Lecturer in Physics, and also joined the Fellowship at Corpus Christi College. Research-wise, a group has grown based on imaging and microfluidic devices, addressing a range of questions in biological and soft matter physics. In 2013 he was promoted to Reader, in 2016 Professor. He is a prominent advocate of biological physics mationally (Chair IOP Biological Physics group) and in Cambridge (co-PI of the Center for Physical Biology).