Prof. Masayuki Wada

Research

Biography:                 

Prof. Wada is an experimental physicist, leader of one of the research teams developing the ultra-pure photo-detection devices at Astrocent.

He obtained a Bachelor’s degree in physics from Tokyo University of Science in 2005, a PhD degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 2013. In 2013, he was awarded a Dicke Fellowship at Princeton University. In 2018, he won the INFN Post-doctoral Fellowship in Italy. From September 2019, his main post is that of an Assistant Professor (adiunkt) at the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences as the leader of the Ultrapure SiPMs and Associated Readout Electronics Group at Astrocent.

Main scientific interests

Prof. Wada’s primary research interest focuses on detecting dark matter, especially Weak Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). WIMP is one of the well physics motivated dark matter candidate, which might relate to a new physics beyond the Standard Model at the weak scale. His main focal point is DarkSide experiment, which is a dark matter detector in operation at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS). He led the analysis on WIMP search in DarkSide-50 experiment.

In Astrocent, his group works on development of ultra-pure photo-detection devices based on Silicon Photomultipliers for WIMP direct detection search and neutrinoless double beta decay search as well as medical applications, such as Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanners.

Degrees and titles