Othello D. Gomes

About Me: 

Hello there, my name is Othello (they/he): I am currently a Ph.D student in physics at the University of Cincinnati, aspiring to go into experimental High Energy Physics and detector R&D. I am currently a Teaching Assistant for General & College Physics II Labs for Fall 2025. Previously, I was an undergraduate physics student at the University of Maryland, College Park. During my time at UMD, I was involved in a few projects ranging from theory to experiment: exoplanet astrophysics, quantum information science, and  particle physics. 

I was recently involved with the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) flavor physics group, where I am being supervised by Prof. Phoebe Hamilton on R&D for the LHCb experiment's ECAL for Upgrades Ib and II, an effort which is known as PicoCal within the collaboration. Prior to that, I worked on the analysis of the Z-Hadronic cross section comparing the difference between two MC generators in the background and using the uncertainty of it to apply cuts to final states of Z: this was done in affiliation with Prof. Christoph Paus' group at MIT as part of a particle physics I took in Spring 2024 at UMD taught by Prof. Christopher Palmer. I have also worked with the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science (QuICS), which is affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies at UMD (UMIACS): my project there was on the easing and curing of the quantum Monte Carlo sign problem via boundary and physical phase transitions, on which I was advised by Dr. Jacob Bringewatt & Dr. Dominik Hangleiter. 

I initially started my journey as a community college student at the Rockville campus of Montgomery College, where I majored and got my Associate of Science degree in Mathematics. I always knew my interests to be in the physical and mathematical sciences: I found my first opportunity with exploring my interests with the GRAD-MAP program, which is a diversity initiated program aimed towards equipping historically marganialized communities  with basic research skills and eventually giving them an opportunity to participate in research with their Summer Scholars Program. With the help of this program, I was able to realize my interest for research and whether I'd continue down this path of exploration. During GRAD-MAP Summer Scholars, I worked under Prof. Thaddeus Komacek  on the reinflation of radii of Hot Jupiters orbiting post-main sequence stars.