Particle Physics at the Crossroads

Particle physicists are in the midst of an era where great discoveries are being made about the properties of space and time.  From the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, to the search for dark matter, major advances in our understanding have occurred.  These discoveries, however, make clear that there are many unanswered questions about our universe and very little theoretical guidance as to what to expect.   I will discuss the impact of the Higgs discovery and possible roadmaps for future discoveries. 

Sally Dawson is a theoretical physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory where her research focuses on predictions for Higgs physics at the Large Hadron Collider and on the expected new discoveries at high energy colliders.   She is the author of  “The Higgs Hunters Guide”, a manual for understanding Higgs physics. She received the 2017 J.J. Sakurai Prize from the American Physical Society “for instrumental contributions to the theory of the properties, reactions, and signatures of the Higgs boson.”