Yasmine Amhis

thumb|Yasmine Amhis, particle physicist ‎Yasmine Amhis (born 1982, Algiers) is a French-Algerian particle physicist. In 2016, she was awarded the Jacques Herbrand Prize. She is the granddaughter of the Algerian poet and writer Djoher Amhis-Ouksel. Quotes Featured Woman Scientist of the Month: Yasmine Amhis (July 2022) ‎ Conversation with Yasmine Amhis I am inherently a curious person, and I am always questioning everything. *Fundamental science strikes me as being an ideal home for the curious. My trajectory towards fundamental physics was not straightforward. I started with Medicine as my parents are both medical doctors, this path was not for me though. At the library of the university, I discovered the physics textbooks and fell in love with the topic instantly. I am a particle physicist and a member of the LHCb collaboration at CERN. LHCb is one of the four experiments located on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. One of the primary roles of this experiment is to study the difference between matter and anti-matter as well as search for signatures of particles beyond the Standard Model. Particle physics is a discipline that requires a very diverse set of skills, there is room for people with many interests. Some may prefer detectors building, data processing, data analysis, machine learning, phenomenology and/or collaboration with theorists. What we bring to society is subtle, there is really an urge to continue to understand fundamental concepts of nature. Some of the questions we try to address on everyday basis may seem disconnected from daily matters and to some extent they are. The heart of fundamental physics is to push further human knowledge, even if maybe we face too many meetings and compilation errors. There is a high level of training of young PhD students. Particle Physics by its complexity is one of the best schools to learn critical thinking. I have been elected Physics Coordinator of the LHCb experiment, my two-year mandate starts on August 1rst, 2022. The Run 3 of the LHC is also starting now, so the next coming months will be very challenging and exciting for me and for all our community. I have done research mainly between France and Switzerland. I interact with people across the world. It starts with children, how they are raised and educated. The stigma that girls are not good at Math starts when they are tiny. The language we use is important, still today I hear statements like When a physicist does his analysis, he will. Who writes reference letters for young women should make sure that they promote all the skills and not only her soft skills. The people in charge have the responsibility to create an environment where all voices, even the less loud ones can express themselves and their ideas. Parental leaves should be respected and the responsibilities of women who return after a leave should be restored to them. Scheduling meetings after 17:00 will invertibility discriminate against young mothers and therefore should be avoided. I stop here, but there is so much more to say on this topic. Discussion with Dr. Yasmine Amhis, recipient of the Grand Prix Jacques Herbrand in Physics ‎Interview with Dr. Yasmine Amhis, winner of the Jacques Herbrand Grand Prize in Physics I feel very proud. Especially for my family who was always supportive of my work. I was born and raised in Algiers, in high school I was in “Sciences Exact. I arrived in France in 1999 to start medicine. For various reasons medicine didn’t quite work out for me, so I started to study fundamental physics which I loved very much. I did the equivalent of bachelor and master. I did a PhD in particle physics between 2006 and 2009. I was a post-doc in EPFL. I was partly based at CERN. In 2012 I got a job in CNRS where I am now a “chargé de recherche. I am a member of the LHCb experiment. *Its one of the four experiments on the LHC ring at CERN. The main goal of our experiment is to study the difference between matter and anti-matter but also to look for signs of what we call physics beyond the Standard Model. The Standard Model is today somehow the best description that we have of the fundamentals laws of nature. What is interesting is that while this model is very powerful and predictive it fails to explain some aspects for nature such as dark matter. My institute indeed participated in the discovery of many particles since it was created in the fifties. I think it’s important to emphasise the collaborative aspect of these discoveries in particular in the collider physics. The facilities and detector which were and will be built are gigantic and they need the association of many institutes in many countries. Right now we are in a phase of data taking at the LHC. It’s hard to predict if we are going to find new things or not. We are all certainly hoping to find something interesting in the data. Sky is not even the limit ‎A conversation with Yasmine Amhis, recipient of the 2016 Jacques Herbrand Prize This is an individual award, but my work was achieved as a team. I work on what we call in particle physics the 'standard model. I liked big machines such as scanners. I arrived in France at the beginning of classes. I finally found a place to stay, I was already lagging. I liked particle physics, I liked the idea to reveal secrets of the world. Far from what I had experimented in medical studies, we shared notes between students when one of us was sick. She was fascinated by teachers, who were often teachers researchers with thrilling discussions, most of all when you want to work in research. I did a three-years post-PhD contract at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne An interview with Yasmine Amhis conducted by Monica Dunford Yasmine Amhis was interviewed by Monica Dunford How do you move when you have to overcome an obstacle, and what tricks do you reach for to help you? First, I sleep on it and let the subconscious do its great work. Then, I sit down and try to break down the obstacle into smaller parts. I try to explore if there are other paths around the obstacle, ones that I haven’t thought about. For big obstacles, after I have drafted a plan, I always call a close colleague, someone that I trust, to run it by them. Often the situation might be much clearer from a more distant perspective. These chats help me sound out if there is an obvious path that I have missed or maybe I am too emotionally involved in obstacle to see the solution clearly. Two tricks that always help me are first to break down my plan into many small tasks that can be accomplished in short periods of time. For example if I have to give a big talk on a subject that I not as familiar with, then I find a list of papers that I want to read, and I read one paper a day. This helps me make the project tangible and less scary. Instead of ‘God, I have to give a huge talk!’, I have transformed the problem into ‘I need to read these 10 papers.’. In this way as well, I can easily measure my progress and the obstacle feels less daunting. The second trick is that I keep a small notebook with a list of success that I am proud of. So many times I find that I can recall of my failures or embarrassing moments in an instant. In contrast, all of my successes seem easily forgotten. When I find myself overwhelmed in a moment of panic, this list helps me remind myself of all the tough things that I have successfully overcome in the past. I tell myself - you did it then, you can do it now. Don’t be discouraged. External Links status Early Life of Yasmine Amhis ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎Category:Living people ‎Category:1982 births ‎ Category:Women academics from Algeria Category:Women born in the 1980s Category:Physicists from Algeria Category:Women scientists from Algeria ‎ ‎