Research Area
High-energy nuclear physics
Research Type
Experimentalist
Current Projects
ALICE, ePIC, and STAR
Biographical Sketch
Laura is originally from High Point, North Carolina and received her bachelor’s degree in Physics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She obtained a PhD in Physics from Columbia University in 2018 before coming to Yale where she has been a Postdoc in the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Group.
Research
Professor Havener’s research focuses on experimentally studying quantum chromodynamics (QCD) using high-energy particle colliders. Specifically, she is interested in understanding the properties and dynamics of the deconfined state of QCD matter called the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), produced in heavy-ion collisions. As a member of the ALICE collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), she studies high-energy particles known as jets and how they interact with the QGP. She specializes in using Jet Substructure techniques to explore the complex structure of jets, revealing the intricate nature of the QGP.
Education
Ph.D. 2018, Columbia University