Dean Karlen
R.M. Pearce Professor of Physics, University of Victoria and TRIUMF
- Prof. Karlen has participated in particle physics experiments around the world. Beginning in the 1980s with the Mark-II experiment at SLAC, USA, and then in the 1990s with the OPAL experiment at CERN, Switzerland, he studied aspects of the standard model of particle physics with high energy electron-positron collisions. In the early 2000s, he helped lead the effort to develop and demonstrate the performance of a new type of precision detector, known as a micropattern Time Projection Chamber, for a future high energy linear electron-positron collider. He then led the project to incorporate this technology into the long baseline neutrino experiment, T2K in Japan, where three large volume detectors have been operating in the underground near detector facility since 2009. Prof. Karlen is the principle investigator for projects funded by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and Provincial governments to build a superconducting electron accelerator and expand isotope production capabilities at TRIUMF, as part of the ARIEL project. From 2011-2017 he was director of the Victoria Subatomic Physics and Accelerator Research Centre (VISPA).
- Prior to coming to the University of Victoria and TRIUMF in 2002, Prof. Karlen was a professor in the Department of Physics at Carleton University, in Ottawa.