Tiny Particles, Big Discoveries
At the world’s largest and most important particle physics lab, BU undergraduates work alongside PhDs to learn about the universe’s building blocks.
In a complex that spans more than 1,300 acres on the outskirts of Geneva, straddling Switzerland’s border with France, scientists from around the world are trying to understand how the universe works—from the tiniest particles to stars, planets, and black holes. The laboratory, operated by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (or CERN), may be best known for its Large Hadron Collider, a nearly 17-mile ring 100 meters underground where researchers smash particles together at high speeds, studying the reaction and looking for previously unseen particles and phenomena. In 2012, for example, they discovered the subatomic Higgs boson—sometimes called “the God particle”—a breakthrough that helped them understand why particles gain mass and fill in a decades-old gap in particle physics theory.
Every day at CERN, thousands of visiting and permanent researchers work on hundreds of experiments of cosmic importance. Each summer, they get an assist from as many as 20 undergraduate students from Arts & Sciences—a rarity in a lab where most of the visiting students are doctoral candidates, according to Tiziano Camporesi, an adjunct physics professor. Camporesi, part of the CERN team that discovered the Higgs boson particle, now helps match juniors participating in BU’s Geneva Study Abroad Program—which celebrated its 20th year in 2025—to projects in the world-renowned lab. The study abroad experience runs from January through July each year and combines courses in physics and French with lab experience at CERN. Students can apply to extend their stay through the summer to continue their work at the facility. And if you’re envisioning them making coffee runs for the PhDs all day, don’t. “The students are fully integrated into international teams working on cutting-edge projects in their respective domains,” Camporesi says. That includes reporting regularly on the projects they’re working on, including at international conferences.
The projects BU students assist with span a wide range of domains. This summer they helped analyze data from Large Hadron Collider experiments. They participated in the research, development, and construction of the next generation of particle detectors and explored the properties of anti-hydrogen atoms, or antimatter. And they worked on studies of nuclear isotopes, what Camporesi calls a niche yet vital area of nuclear physics. “If you’re a physicist, CERN is where you want to be, and it’s one heck of an opportunity as an undergraduate,” says Payton Harvill (CAS’26), who used a technology called collinear laser spectroscope to study the makeup of rare and unstable
isotopes. “It is the best place to be in the world.”
Arts × Sciences spoke with Harvill and three other student researchers about how their experiences at CERN have opened a window to new career paths in the sciences.
Payton Harvill (CAS’26)
Ellensburg, Wash.
Payton Harvill marvels at her journey from rural Ellensburg, Wash.—population 18,000—to Geneva, where she spent the summer shooting beams of light into rare isotopes at the high-security CERN lab. Harvill and her research team repeatedly bounce the ions through an ion trap and probe them using laser beams—research that perhaps one day will reveal how the nucleons interact in the nucleus of atoms. Their work could advance nuclear medicine and energy technologies. Harvill set out to learn why some elements, specifically exotic cadmium and magnesium, gain an unusual stability in their half-life, which is the time it takes for half of the atoms of a radioactive isotope to decay. She says her job was “to get the most sensitive measurements of these isotopes in the world,” and adds that she aims to produce isotope measurements with higher precision values than much of the existing literature. “Our device has been able to push the limits of uncertainty that we’re able to measure, which is pretty awesome.”
Pedro Baculima (CAS’26)
Cuenca, Ecuador
As a teenager, Pedro Baculima devoured Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, which exposed him to a universe filled with dark matter, black holes, and big, unanswered questions. At BU, Baculima started studying neutrinos— the abundant but hard-to-detect subatomic particles that make up the universe. He feels fortunate to have been matched to an experiment at CERN exploring how these fundamental particles interact with energy never measured before. Baculima ran simulations of various experimental conditions, adapting and adjusting the code to his fellow researchers’ needs. A primary objective of the experiment, he says, is to study neutrinos produced in proton-proton collisions in an energy range never probed before. “All this knowledge, at the end, contributes to our understanding of the world we live in,” Baculima says. “So from my perspective, that’s why it matters.”
Shelby Cavanaugh (CAS’26)
Cheyenne, Wyo.
The Gamma Factory experiment at CERN—located in the tunnels underneath the complex—uses lasers to create high-intensity gamma ray beams. Shelby Cavanaugh’s job was to control the mechanical vibrations of the setup and provide means for the researchers to correct for vibrations in future experiments. She spent much of her time developing and testing the device in the optics lab, later deploying it underground to collect data. The experiment could result in higher-power gamma ray beams, which help scientists see clearly inside the nuclei of atoms. “You feel like the least knowledgeable person in the room at all times,” Cavanaugh says. “But you’re surrounded by people who genuinely want you to learn, because they remember being in that position themselves.”
Deniz Yoldas (CAS’26)
Istanbul, Turkey
Just one year after taking and loving—his first quantum physics class at BU, Deniz Yoldas couldn’t believe he was at CERN. Every morning, Yoldas laced up his safety shoes, strapped on a helmet, grabbed his radiation detector, and reported to the antiproton decelerator facility, where scientists study the behavior of antimatter—a counterpart of regular matter with the same mass but opposite charge and quantum properties. “My experience is basically exploring the elusive nature of antimatter, trying to spot its differences from regular matter with high precision,” Yoldas says. “It’s important because the theories that try to explain the origin of the universe predict there should have been an equal amount of matter and antimatter created at the Big Bang, which is clearly not what we have observed so far.”
BU Physics Faculty, Graduate Students Share in $3 Million Breakthrough Prize
Thousands of scientists from more than 70 countries working at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) from 2015 to 2024 shared in the prestigious 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. The prize winners include a number of former and current BU faculty and graduate students who’ve worked on a variety of LHC experiments that resulted in detailed measurements of the Higgs boson, among other discoveries. The prize—which, at $3 million, is the largest in physics globally—recognizes the scientists’ groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of fundamental particles and forces. The prize money was split between the winners and will be used to support doctoral students conducting research at CERN. Dubbed “the Oscars of Science,” the 2025 Breakthrough ceremony was hosted by comedian James Corden in April 2025 in Los Angeles.