About me

I am a CNRS researcher within the PhyNeT group of the Laboratoire de physique des 2 Infinis: Irène-Joliot Curie (IJClab) located on the Paris-Saclay campus and an adjunct Assistant Professor of Physics at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University (MSU). I have done all my studies in my hometown, Brussels in Belgium. Eager to learn, I have studied both economics and engineering! I graduated from my two bachelors and my master degree in 2016. My interests for nuclear physics grew during my master thesis and drove me to apply for a PhD fellowship. I have conducted my PhD partly in Belgium and partly in Germany, and moved to the US in 2020. I was a FRIB Theory Fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory until August 2023, and in August 2023, I moved to FRIB at MSU as Assistant Professor of Physics. Since February 2024, I am a CNRS researcher at IJClab. My research focuses on improving the theoretical description of reactions involving very short-lived nuclei. I am particularly interested in the study of exotic phenomena arising close to the driplines nuclei, such as the halo formation, and in reactions of interest for astrophysics.

Research interests

I always found reaction theory fascinating as one needs to treat accurately both the static and dynamic properties of nuclei. My research focuses on improving the theoretical description of reactions involving exotic nuclei, needed to interpret experimental data and to arrive at a more fundamental understanding of the nuclear structure and reactions. My work touches on both improvements of few-body models for direct reactions, such as breakup, knockout, transfer, and ab initio predictions for reactions of astrophysical interests. Predicting accurately these reaction probabilities are key to unveil exotic phenomena away from stability, such as the halo formation, and to improve our understanding of the nucleosynthesis occurring in stars. My goal is to strengthen the link between reaction observables and the underlying nuclear structure. My research will strongly benefit the analysis of reaction measurements, the planning of future experiments and improve our predictive power for reactions that cannot be reached experimentally.

You can find information about the theoretical nuclear physics group at IJClab at https://theorie.ijclab.in2p3.fr/en/research-topics/nuclear-physics/

At FRIB, with Filomena Nunes, I am co-leading a group working on few-body reaction theory. You can find out more about the group's research, the lastest news and the members of the group at https://sites.google.com/view/frib-few-body-reaction-group/

Education, professional experiences & CV

Since Feb. 2024: CNRS researcher at Laboratoire de physique des 2 Infinis: Irène-Joliot Curie (IJClab)

Since Feb. 2024: Adjunct Assistant Professor of Physics at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB), Michigan State University (MSU), USA

Aug. 2023 - Dec. 2024 : Assistant Professor of Physics at FRIB (MSU), USA.

Oct. 2020 - Aug. 2023: FRIB Theory Fellow, Host institution: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), USA.

2020: PhD in Nuclear Physics (FRIA Scholar), Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium.

2016: Master of Science in Physical Engineering, ULB, Belgium.

2016: Bachelor in Economics, ULB, Belgium.

2013: Bachelor of Science in Engineering, ULB, Belgium.

Here is a link to my full cv & my google scholar profile

About me

Research interests

Education, professional experiences & CV

Contact information

hebborn@ijclab.in2p3.fr