Beate Heinemann, Ph.D.

Dr. Heinemann earned her B.S. and M.S. from the University of Hamburg and her Ph.D. from the University of Hamburg and DESY. She received the BEST Ph.D. Thesis Award in 1999 and was elected an American Physics Society fellow in 2009 and a Kavli fellow in 2012. From 1999 to 2006, Dr. Heinemann was at the University of Liverpool working on the CDF experiment at Fermilab near Chicago. At this proton-proton collider, she made several measurements and conducted searches for supersymmetry, a theory that could explain the origin of the dark matter in the Universe. For two years she convened the physics group that searched for the Higgs boson, supersymmetry, and other new particles (the "Exotics" group).

Since 2007, Dr. Heinemann has been at UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab. She is working on the ATLAS experiment at the LHC at CERN near Geneva, initially working on the silicon pixel detector, which is in the very center of the ATLAS detector and is the first detector that particles emerging from the proton-proton collisions hit. She was in charge of monitoring this detector when it took the first cosmic ray data in 2008. She was elected "data preparation coordinator" at ATLAS for October 2011 until September 2013. In this capacity, Dr. Heinemann overlooked preparing the data for physics analyses, including calibrating, processing, and assessing data quality. “This was a tremendously exciting time, as the data came in rapidly and it was critical to provide them fast — typically within one week of taking the data they were ready for analysis,” says Dr. Heinemann.

Since March 2013, she has been one of the two deputies of ATLAS spokesperson Dave Charlton. Throughout this time on ATLAS, she has made measurements and searches for new particles with students and postdocs from UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab.

1. What inspires you to work in STEM?

Mostly it is simply my curiosity and the challenge it represents. It is very fascinating to find out something truly fundamental about nature, e.g., finding a new law of nature or a new fundamental particle. I was among the people discovering the Higgs boson last year and just purely the fact that we have experimentally found a particle that was theoretically assumed to be there for nearly 50 years is amazing. Working in STEM in general gives the opportunity to increase the overall knowledge of humanity, and this can lead to revolutionary developments of society, e.g., quantum mechanics led to the development of the transistor, which in turn led to the development of computers.

2. What excites you about your work at the Energy Department/Berkeley Lab?

Berkeley Lab provides a fantastic work environment for me. I am member of the Berkeley Lab ATLAS group, which consists of about 45 people, 10 of which are students. Within this group we have a broad range of expertise ranging from silicon detector development, via software development and performance studies, to physics analyses. In addition there is a group of about 15-20 theorists that work on ideas related to my research. I frequently interact with all these people. It is a very stimulating and exciting research environment.

3. How can our country engage more women, girls, and other underrepresented groups in STEM?

I wish I knew! In my experience the biggest problem is lack of confidence during the critical ages of 15-20. Women often think they can't do it even though they are just as talented as their peer men. I myself was thinking I could not do it when I was about 20 during my first two semesters. I thought at least that I was not very good. But then in the first oral exam I got the highest grade and did much better than most men and women. I was surprised and kept going but if I had not gotten quite as high of a mark I might have quit. I think in this area mentoring can help from graduate students or faculty. I also think this is why role models play an important role as they show that women can succeed in that given area. I also think specialized events at universities directed at undergraduate women in STEM are very useful to foster interactions between the students and to enable the students to discuss with graduate students, postdocs, or professors about their career in related fields.

Of course there is the general question of how women can combine career and family but this is an issue for all fields, not only STEM, and cannot explain why, e.g,. there are far fewer majors in physics than in math. I myself don't have children and have thus not faced any of these challenges.

4. Do you have tips you would recommend for someone looking to enter your field of work?

My field has become a very international enterprise, simply due to the relatively high costs (both in money and in labor) of the facilities required. A critically important aspect is also the ability to interact well with people since all the work is highly collaborative. This goes somewhat against the picture the general public has of a scientist being a person locked into his/her basement lab.

5. When you have free time, what are your hobbies?

I love to ski, and have recently started running nearly every day. I also enjoy good movies, books, and particularly music.