>> Well, this is May 5th, 2022,
and we're interviewing Nik Kidonakis.
I can't pronounce it the way you just
pronounced it in brief, but Nikolaos.
>> Nikolaos Kidonakis.
>> Nikolaos. I just had to put
a syllable and an accent somewhere else,
I think. Nikolaos Kidonakis.
This is actually the third interview that we've
done with Nik for the KSU oral history project.
But the first to be filmed.
And so I think it would
be helpful to start with a quick review
of what you told us in 2008 and 2014.
>> Sure.
>> And I'll just say quickly,
you were born in Greece in 1969,
came to the US at age 17 to go
to school at California Institute of Technology,
graduated from there with honor in physics in 1990,
studied a year at the University of Cambridge,
then received a PhD from
State University of New York, Stony Brook.
>> That's right.
>> In 1996.
Why don't we begin by you
telling us briefly what you
concluded in your dissertation,
which was entitled QDC?
>> QCD.
>> QCD, sorry,
which stands for quantum chromodynamics.
QCD re-summation and heavy quark cross-section.
>> Yes. So my field of
research is theoretical particle physics.
So I'm interested in the most elementary particles
that make up the world and
the forces with which they interact.
And so the heaviest elementary particle
that we know of is the top quark,
and that's what I've been studying for a long time,
in addition to other things.
And then we try to do calculations
that can make predictions for what happens
when protons collide with protons or protons
collide with anti-protons and create
new particles, like top quarks.
So the experimentalists measure these things at,
for example, the Tevatron in the past,
at the LHC now,
and they measure what's called the cross-section,
which, roughly speaking,
is a measure of how many particles you produce,
how many top quarks you produce in these collisions.
And people like me, theorists,
we calculate using quantum field theory,
and in particular, perturbation theory,
and so quantum chromodynamics is the quantum theory of
the strong nuclear force
with which actually the protons are bound,
because the protons are made out of quarks and gluons,
and they're bound together.
So we use this theory to calculate these things.
And so my calculation was, basically,
a theoretical calculation that made
predictions for the production
of top quarks and other heavy quarks.
In perturbation theory you can calculate a series of
terms where the leading term
is the easiest one to calculate,
then the next leading order one is harder, and so on.
But there's certain parts
of those terms that you can calculate
actually at very high orders,
and these terms come from soft gluon emissions.
So gluons are the particles responsible
for the strong nuclear force.
And so when these gluons have low energy,
they're called soft gluons,
and they dominate the cross-section numerically.
So my calculation was, basically,
to do the re-summation to
all orders of these soft gluon effects and then
produce theoretical results that
then can be compared against experiment.
So in brief,
that's what it is. [LAUGHTER] Very briefly.
>> Well, how did you get
into the theoretical side
of things as opposed to the experimental side?
>> I have a theoretical bent, I guess.
And since I was a young boy,
I was always interested in physics,
and later, more particularly in particle physics.
And I guess the theoretical part attracts me more because
it addresses fundamental questions using mathematics.
That attracts me more than doing experiments in the lab.
>> So this is
really advanced mathematics applied
to a problem in physics?
>> Yes, that's right.
So we use advanced mathematics.
In fact, physics sometimes we create
our own mathematics sometimes,
or sometimes recreate it.
We didn't know that they were invented before.
>> And in the previous interviews,
we talked about how your work is applied at CERN's,
C-E-R-N, which is over in Geneva,
Switzerland, and the Large Hadron Collider.
>> Collider.
>> So they're basically creating large collisions
that protons and neutrons
and all that are colliding
with each other and producing these particles.
And you're basically doing
mathematical formulas that predict
what they're going to find?
>> Yes.
>> And they test it there.
>> That's right.
>> To see whether it works.
>> That's right. So at the Large Hadron Collider,
the colliding protons with
protons are very high energies.
Before that, actually, the
Tevatron colliding formula outside Chicago,
you know it, they were
colliding protons with anti-protons.
Anti-protons are the anti-particles
corresponding to protons.
So that what's called anti-matter.
So at the beginning of
my career when I was
a graduate student and then post-doc and so on,
and even a young faculty member,
it was a Tevatron collider that
actually was producing results,
and my calculations were relevant to that.
But then later, the 2010s,
the LHC started colliding
and now the Tevatron is shut down,
and so now my results are used by the LHC collider.
>> Because it's not needed anymore,
the one in Illinois?
>> Yeah, because, well, it's not needed.
It wasn't funded to continue more,
and part of the reason was because of
the LHC having much higher energies.
So they thought, now,
since we're doing collisions
with much higher energies at the LHC,
maybe it's time to shut down the Tevatron.
>> Which, I guess, is to say that there's
an international scientific community
and it really doesn't matter
whether it's done in Batavia,
Illinois, or Geneva, Switzerland.
>> That's true.
>> We all work together.
>> That's true. Although, of course,
it does make a difference to
have your own collider in your country
because it attracts people to physics and so on.
There are other colliders, smaller ones,
and that also have other uses.
They're still like at Brookhaven,
and they're building a new one
, an electron-hadron collider.
>> Where is that?
>> That's at Brookhaven in Long Island, actually.
So close to Stony Brook, actually.
So they had another collider recently, RHIC,
relativistic heavy ion collider,
and now they're building a new one.
The physics down there, it's more
towards what's called hydronic
physics and towards nuclear.
So it's not as much on the topics that I work.
So the topics I work are more relevant
to what they're doing right now at the LHC.
>> I know in your earlier interviews,
I was surprised to learn that Stony Brook is
so important to the field of
physics and the physics that you're studying.
Everybody knows about Harvard and what have you.
But for State University of New York,
a public institution.
>> Because they were actually running Brookhaven.
I'm not sure exactly how it works,
but I think they're responsible or they were.
I don't know what the situation right now,
but just like Caltech runs JPL,
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
Stony Brook basically was
overseeing Brookhaven National Laboratory.
So it's a big deal.
>> So you wrote your dissertation.
Then you started doing post-docs, first,
at University of Edinburgh,
and then you went from Scotland to Florida.
>> Florida State.
>> Florida State University.
And then you taught for a while at Southern Methodist.
>> Yes.
>> And then you did another post-doc
at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge.
>> That's right.
>> So you went back to Cambridge.
>> Yes.
>> Had a Marie Curie fellow.
And you were the Marie Curie fellow.
>> It was basically my own grant.
So I brought in my own money.
So it was paying for my salary.
>> Authentic.
>> So I was independent in that sense.
>> Well, anything associated with
Marie Curie sounds very impressive.
>> These are prestigious European fellowships.
>> By the way,
one of the things that I really liked about
the earlier interviews you did is
that you talked about tracing your genealogy,
but the genealogy you traced was from
your professor at Stony Brook to his major professor.
>> Peter Higgs, because I remember now
that back then I could trace it down
to James Clerk Maxwell.
But then I had to trace it way beyond that,
like back to Isaac Newton and even before,
back to Byzantine times and so on.
So it's amazing how much you can
trace now and there are tools available.
There's also a math genealogy,
because theoretical physics and
mathematics are so intertwined that you can
actually use also the mathematics genealogy project
to trace your roots,
and actually, I think I went back to 1200 maybe earlier.
>> Wow.
>> It's really amazing.
It really was a lot of fun. [LAUGHTER]
>> That sounds like some really important type
of genealogy
of who's your intellectual mentors and who were theirs.
>> Exactly.
>> And all in all, you've got
the history of physics there, I would think.
>> That's actually right.
>> Well, my question, I guess,
that I'm leading to in all of this is that you came
to Kennesaw State University in 2004.
And after being a nomad for all these years,
you had a family, of course, but-
>> Yes.
>> You were jumping around from
one place to another every few years.
You've actually settled here and you've
been here 18 years now.
And so I guess
my question that we
talked about in the earlier interviews,
but I think it's worth doing again for the film is,
How did all of this work that you've
done prepare you for your career at Kennesaw State?
And why was Kennesaw a good fit
even in 2004 for someone who
was already doing as much publishing and
presenting at international conferences
as you were doing?
>> Well, so the postdoctoral appointments,
they are very useful experience.
In fact, right now
in my field, they're basically required.
If you want to faculty position,
you're expected to do several postdoctoral positions.
And you basically grow as an independent scientist,
you grow because you have time to do research without
having the burdens of teaching and of
service and so on that you have as a faculty member.
So it takes you from being a graduate student who's
just coming into his own
to basically allows you to
mature as a scientist and then you're
ready to start a faculty position
where you have other obligations,
teaching, service, and so on.
So they were very
useful in starting and even my little teaching
visiting position that I had helped me when I came to
Kennesaw to start my teaching.
Well, when I interviewed here they
told me that Kennesaw was growing very fast,
which is true, and is still growing very fast.
>> 2004 we were over 10,000,
but not that much over.
>> Actually, I think it was 17,000, but maybe I'm wrong.
The number changed so much and now we're in the 40,000.
>> It could be about there.
>> So it's more than doubled, almost tripled.
And then in addition to
the accompanied growth in
stature of the university and also the focus on research.
So when I came here,
they told me that faculty,
recently at the time,
back then, they were
beginning to actually require research.
So the focus was going more into research.
So it wasn't just encouraged, it was actually expected.
So actually, I think I had
to sign a memorandum of understanding that I
would publish papers and apply for grants,
at least in my department.
I'm not saying that it was the same everywhere in
all departments or colleges of the university,
because I know there has been some variation,
but it was very
clear that you had to publish and you had to do research,
and I actually like that, because
I wanted to continue being an active scientist.
So I like that. So I thought
this place is somewhere where I can
actually succeed and flourish and do my work.
And of course, I know
we didn't have the facilities and still,
well, we have many more facilities than back then.
But being a theorist, I don't need that.
So if I was an experimentalist,
that would be a different problem, different matter.
But being a theorist, I can work anywhere as long as
I have basic things like a computer or
an office. So it didn't matter much.
What mattered was that research was encouraged,
acknowledge, and supported.
And the fact that they expected
you to apply for grants and I've been on
grants ever since I came here, basically.
I got my first one,
I applied in 2005 and it started in 2006,
and now I'm on my sixth and the seventh grant.
So the fact that they would allow you to get grants
and give you release time from teaching, and so on.
>> Well, that's interesting.
I know we didn't have memos of
understanding in the history department.
>> As I said, it varies.
>> And you were in the Department of Biology and Physics?
>> Well, at the beginning and
then became Department of Physics.
So it was a very large department initially.
>> So they were actually looking
for a researcher when they hired you?
>> Absolutely. That was the main thing.
>> And you talked in
earlier interviews about how there was some tension
between faculty that thought
we should be almost exclusively a teaching institution,
which we were in our early days, and
those that wanted us to be a research university,
which we weren't yet, by definition,
at least in the official definition in 2004.
Maybe this would be a question that gets
into the last eight years as well as the previous.
You had talked earlier about how there was
tension within the departments and colleges and so on,
between those that are
doing a lot of research and those who weren't.
How has that evolved
over the 18 years that you've been here?
>> There's still tension, of course.
And even within,
people who do research are more
active, are more successful.
So there's also Cuban elements, [LAUGHTER] obviously.
So there could be resentment,
there can be tension,
there could be many different things.
But I think overall with [inaudible] page,
I think everybody understands and
accepts that faculty who come here must do research.
As I said, even when I came back in 2004,
it was expected and the expectations have
only increased since then.
So I don't think there's
any debate anymore about that incoming,
at least tenure track faculty.
Now, of course, we have the whole other chapter
of having a lot of lecturers now,
and we're much more dependent on lecturers now
then we used to be in my department.
But they're taking the heavy side of teaching.
So the faculty who come into a tenure track faculty,
they get a lower teaching load,
but then they have the expectation.
No free launch. You teach less,
but you should do research.
So that's now accepted.
And of course as you said,
we used to be a master's university decades ago,
then we started graduate programs
under Dr. Papp and PhD programs.
And then we became an R3 and R2.
So the university has evolved a lot.
But I think it's been a gradual evolution.
I don't think it's been dramatic, oh, now with an R2.
As I said, even back then,
even in 2004, I was expected to publish and get grants.
So I think it's only a slow evolution in terms
of quantitatively, maybe sometimes qualitatively,
but I don't think it's been
a big jump suddenly
who became an R2 and suddenly everything changed.
In a way, actually, I think it took
Carnegie Classification maybe too
long to recognize that we were actually changing.
>> So Carnegie Classification were behind reality?
>> Yeah.
>> I think I agree with that [OVERLAPPING]
>> Because it takes some time to
find out what's going on.
So I think we were already
at least an R3 before we were officially recognized.
>> Although a lot of that Carnegie steps,
how many PhD candidates you're turning out each year?
>> Yes. So it's not everything.
For example, they don't
use number of publications or citations.
I think it's money and then
how many doctorates you give and things like that.
So it's not a complete picture.
But I guess it's a good enough.
[LAUGHTER].
>> I meant to check before the interview of how much
grant money we're bringing in at Kennesaw each year now.
I think we're up to about 10 million when we did
the last interview in 2014,
I imagine we're way above that now.
>> I don't know the number. I know
[inaudible] brought about $1 million
to my six grants since I came here.
>> Well, maybe it'd be a good time
to start talking about these grants.
You had one in Europe,
a European grant before you ever came to Kennesaw.
>> Yeah. There was a [inaudible]
>> And then as you were saying a few minutes ago,
your first grant here came two years
after you arrived, officially 2006.
>> Yeah.
>> And I guess these are all three-year grants?
>> Three-year grants, yeah.
>> So every three years,
you've gotten a new grant.
>> That's right.
>> So you've been as regular as clockwork, 2006,
2009, 2012, 2015, 2018, 2021?
>> Yeah.
>> And as you were saying just a second ago,
those six grants, they're about $300,000 each or?
>> Yeah, the last one 300,000.
Overall, it's about $1 million.
They were not the same amount, it kept increasing.
Its grant kept, getting bigger.
>> In the previous interview,
you were alluding to the fact
that you had to almost apply from scratch each time,
but what you had done in the previous grant helped
a lot getting the next
one but there are different grant each time.
Why don't you talk about this exactly what
these grants enabled you to do,
and what research came out of them?
>> The theme overall, again,
is theoretical particle physics.
I calculated just like we were saying before about my,
beginnings and my dissertation.
I'm doing theoretical calculations that are
relevant for various processes.
As I said, I've been working
ever since my graduate student days on the top part.
But I've also worked on many other
things on the Higgs Boson,
on what I call
the electro v pectoral bosons like
the W boson and the Z boson.
These are all many particles.
>> W and Z?
>> Z.
>> W boson, Z boson
>> We talked about the Z boson last time.
>> Yes. That was
discovered finally experimentally in 2012.
>> Yeah, there's right before we did
the 2014 even people who had
theorized about it since the '60s.
>> That's right. Higgs,
I think it was in 64 and other people also in
Garden Route and others who theorized it.
Also, I'm doing calculations for
also processes that involve
both the top quark and other particles,
for example, top Quark and Higgs together or a top Quark
photo or a top and a W or a top and a Z.
All kinds of different processes
I've been working on all these years.
As we were saying,
there's six NSF grants,
each of them is independent.
You go through the review again,
the reviewers have to approve to write reports and
so even though there's
a flow of continuous flow of my research topics,
they're still independent grants you have to
apply from scratch every time.
It's not like they just say, you have it and you
keep automatically renewing. It doesn't work like that.
>> You asked for money to give me course releases?
>> Yes. Actually,
course releases was during the beginning.
Now they don't do it anymore
because now that research more of
research university they expect the university
to give course releases so we get that automatically.
I cannot the NSF changed its position at some point.
I don't remember which gran was
it the third or the fourth,
where he said no more official course release money.
Because now you had active research [inaudible].
>> [inaudible] support you. Better go somewhere else?
>> Exactly. They stopped that.
Basically, summer salary,
that's the most important thing, summer salary.
Money to support students,
so you can pay students some salaries as a researchers.
>> Right.
>> Computer equipment, travel.
These are the main things.
I should also mentioned that
the first five grants that I got,
I was a single PI and then my most recent one,
I'm still the PI, but I have a co-PI,
Marco Guzzi, who's who came here in 2017.
This is a joint grant,
I'm the PI's the co-PI.
>> He's been here since 2017?
>> Since 2017, yeah.
>> That's almost a long time the years.
>> Yeah.
>> You had somebody that could talk to you?
>> That's right.
>> Maybe it would
be a good time to ask this question now.
Prior to 2015, we didn't have a physics major.
What kind of students
were you able to recruit to pay on these grants?
>> I was able to get people from math.
I I've supervised or mentored,
or whatever you want to call it, about 50 students,
undergraduate and graduate students,
50 over my career here about 55,
including most undergraduate,
also some graduate students.
But most of them I
did recently were actually not in physics.
There will be people from math from chemistry,
from computer science who were just interested,
they would take my classes,
and then I would advertise,
if you're interested in
modern physics come and talk to me.
They would come some of them did
directed studies or directed methods,
and then some of them were actually
interested enough and good enough to
actually go on my grant,
and then we publish papers and so on.
>> Yeah. I think this should be natural
for somebody in mathematics that's
looking for some practical
application of what they're doing.
>> Yes. That's correct.
I also had some students from Georgia Tech.
Some of them wrote to me even from
high school others directly from Georgia Tech.
Others went from Keno State to Georgia Tech,
but they kept working with me.
I get students like that,
but then once we had the physics program,
I actually could also
have students from from physics major and
one of them was very successful Matthew Forslund and
he wrote three papers
together and also some proceedings papers together.
He's not a graduate student of Stony Brook.
Even when you went to Stony Brook for a while,
I would still support him from my grant for a little bit.
>> [inaudible] for the transcriber F-O-R-S-L-U-N-D.
>> Yes.
>> How does that work if they're going to Georgia Tech or
Stony brook but it
has to be some mutual relationship
between the universities, doesn't it?
>> Well, any student in any system of
Georgia University can take classes in any other.
Georgia Tech students can actually
take classes here officially.
>> So they do that directly?
>> So they can do a direct study, for example.
Or they could even take another course if they
want to so it's easy to do that.
Then to pay them as via
the NSF it's not a straightforward
because you cannot pay them as undergraduate students.
You have to pay them as something else
like research associates from somewhere else.
It was a little complicated, but I managed to do it.
Then I guess another thing I would like to say is
that I've also recently had postdocs as well.
I had my first postdoc.
>> I wanted to ask you about that today,
that's got to be the first for volcanoes state, doesn't?
>> Well, I'm
not sure if it's the first volcanoes of state,
but certainly the first in my field.
I had Nodoka Yamanaka. It's his name.
He was here for a year
and he was paid from my previous grant.
>> What was his name?
>> It's a Japanese name, Nodoka Yamanaka.
>> Spell it.
>> Yamanaka Y-A-M-A-N-A-K-A.
He's actually a faculty member
in Nagoya University in Japan.
He was successful, he went
for a postdoc and then he got
a faculty position back in Japan.
We're still working together. Then we
just hired another postdoc.
Alberto Tomero who is going to come in August.
>> Alberto.
>> Alberto and then Tomero is T-O-M-E-R-O.
Italian name. So he's starting in August,
so he'll be my second postdoc.
>> Well, this point out just
how international the film is.
>> That's right. Well,
I'm very happy that finally,
we can have postdocs.
And actually, I should mention that the first postdoc,
Madoka he was paid half
from my grand and half actually through
a post doctoral sponsor associate award
from the Office of Research here at KSU.
So the University supporting
postdocs as well as List party or they expect
you to eventually get
a grant and well, I already had a grant.
So I asked them basically to chip in for a year
and we'll be here for at least a couple of years.
>> Well, so you use this money to pay students.
You use the money to get your summers off
and get credit for
teaching what you would get
if you were teaching your class, I guess.
Equivalent to whether you were teaching in the summer.
Did you use some of it to
travel to those international conferences
where you invited to go through the presentation?
>> Yes. So I've traveled to many,
throughout these years, I don't know, I've given
100 talks or something in conferences.
So I traveled widely, of course,
not the last couple of years because of COVID.
So since 2020,
I'm still actually attending conference,
but they are all virtual.
In fact, just yesterday, I gave
two online talks at a conference.
>> That's a lot cheaper for?
>> That's a lot cheaper.
But actually,
I had a lot of travel money that I couldn't spend.
And actually, the truth is,
that's how I managed to hire
my first postdoc because
I hadn't spent all this travel money.
And then I could pay at least half of
the year for the postdoc
and the other half of the year [OVERLAPPING]
>> Foundation doesn't object to you?
>> No. In fact,
I asked them and they said, that a great idea.
You're helping somebody, a particle physicists.
>> I think maybe one guy defense
the pandemic has done with Zoom and what have you is
has made us realize why are people spending
so much money prior to an international conference.
You can all meet the internationally.
>> Of course, there's something to be said about
in personal interactions.
It doesn't exactly replace,
but it is in a way more accessible to people.
>> Well, all
of this that you're doing with these grants would
sound very impressive if we were in R1.
But for an R2,
obviously every professor can't do this works.
>> It's not typical.
>> But I think it's
very impressive that it's happening at [inaudible] now.
So I guess the one thing we haven't talked about
is what have you contributed to the field,
I guess, as a result of having
this grant money to do
all this research and having physics for health.
>> Increasingly precise calculations
for a variety of processes,
creating new theoretical formalisms
and generalizing the more and making,
as I would tell you earlier about
using pertubation here and calculating
things at higher and higher orders,
and what are called higher loops.
There are these diagrams that you calculate
and what are called loop diagrams.
So, when I started decades ago,
the state of the art maybe was
one loop calculations or next to leading order,
and then I pushed the envelope to two loops
and more recently and three loops or
next to next to leading order and
approximately next to next leading order and so on.
So I've been pushing the envelope and I've been also
covering many more complicated processes.
So instead of being 2-2, now 3-3.
So you start with collisions of two particles,
and you get three particles out and more and so on.
So these more precise calculations are needed in order
to test our models and see if we can find new physics.
So the LAC, for example,
they use my calculations
to validate the existing theories,
but also as a background to look
for new signals of new particles,
new directions, and so on.
So that's the contribution.
>> Getting more sophisticated.
>> More sophisticated.
>> And in the previous interview,
you said that you thought that the art diagram for
either LAC would be in
the zone at least to 2030. What do you think now?
>> Yes. In fact this summer, it's just starting again.
So we had a long shutdown and now run
three of the LAC will start for several years.
Then there will be another shutdown and then there will
be the high [inaudible],
which will go on for more years.
It will go definitely into the 2030s.
Then after that, we don't know,
there may be high energy LAC.
And then they're talking about maybe near
the end of the century to build what's called the FCC,
the future circular collider with a much higher energy.
But of course that's maybe in 2070,
I'll long be gone by then.
But I don't think I'll be
active if I'm alive at that time.
>> Well, you've been wonderful if you are but.
>> I would be over 100 and if I'm alive.
>> You might be act doing search.
[LAUGHTER] Well,
let's talk about the most recent grant the 2021,
$300,000, that's the biggest one so far.
>> That's the biggest one, and as I said,
is with Marco Guzzi,
so it's a joint one.
>> By the way, I guess I should ask.
Did you have to lobby hard to
bring him onto the faculty here?
>> Yes. I had my fights to and let's put it that way.
And also, as you mentioned we got another one also.
We have a third particle theories now on the faculty.
Andreas [inaudible].
Don't ask me to spell it, you can look it out
and it's a Greek name this one. He's from Cyprus.
>> Another Greek.
>> He's from Cyprus, but he's
[OVERLAPPING] from from Cyprus.
So he came last year.
So we'll now have a group of
three and we may even get more actually.
We were waiting for our Dean to decide,
we have this what are called
now RIGs, research interest groups.
And now the hiring goes through the RIGs now.
And so we may we may be hiring actually
even a fourth person this year or in the future,
we'll see how it goes.
And so we are expanding,
we have a solid group now.
>> Well, now I'm going to read this.
I think it came straight from you and
don't necessarily assume that I
understand anything that I'm reading here.
But the grant is to improve
theoretical predictions for various particle processes.
>> That's right.
>> High energy collisions of proton?
>> Yes. So basically
what I was saying before, in other words,
collisions of protons at the LAC,
will produce particles like top
quarks like kicks and so on.
So our research is basically to have improved
theoretical predictions for what happens in
these collisions and how you produce these particles.
>> So you're funded at least through '24 now?
>> Yes. That's right. So that means in 2023,
we have to reapply.
>> Well, it must be exciting to have colleagues
now that are doing the same work that you're doing?
>> Yes. It's nice to be able to
talk to people and collaborate.
Actually, we wrote a paper with
Marco and now the three of us,
me, Marco, and Andreas are actually
also doing something together.
So it is good.
>> Can you say something about Marco
and about your collaboration together?
>> So yes. So we wrote a paper on TZ Prime Production.
So the associate production of
a top quark with the Z prime boson.
Now, Z prime is actually a hypothetical particle.
So we're also doing work
not just for particles that we already know exist,
but even for some particles that are
hypothesized exists and that people are looking for.
So what are the paper and together on that
and now we're thinking on writing a new paper again,
something about the top again.
But of course, he has his own research also in
different aspects of the field,
but we have overlapping interest as well.
>> And you've already talked a little bit about
your theoretical high energy physics group
that you're working on to bring about.
>> Yes.
>> And that's going to you've got
your three faculty members and
all the students that are working with you.
>> Any postdoc.
>> Any postdocs?
>> Yes.
>> And so you should have
quite of a concentration, I guess.
>> Yes.
>> Well, let me just ask you in the way of a question.
How unique is this in Georgia to have a concentration
of people who are doing Theoretical Particle Physics?
>> It's quite unique, actually.
For many years, I was
the only Theoretical Particle
Physicist in the State of Georgia.
Certainly, the only funded by the NSF,
but I don't even think there was anybody else.
So it was unique that I was here for my program.
My research program was unique for many years.
So I had the only NSF grants in
the field for decades, basically.
And now then we've got Marco.
And I think there may be
some other people in other being hired in Georgia,
but I think we were the only group
now still, more than one person.
And in fact, that's why I have people from
Georgia Tech coming to work with me.
Georgia Tech is obviously much bigger research wise.
But they don't have somebody
doing Theoretical Particle Physics.
And that's why I had several students over
the years coming to work with me here.
That's not the typical way you would think about it.
You would think would be the other way around.
>> Now, experimental particle physicists,
they have to be in a place like Zern to
do their work or can they do that,
experimental work at Georgia Tech or abroad?
>> I know they have something like I
think they have astro-particle physics,
I think if I'm not mistaken.
Big research universities that have facilities,
they can build parts of detectors and things like that.
So they can do some work,
of course, there's no university
that can have its own collider.
That's for sure, there
can only be one or two in the world.
But still universities that have a lot of money,
they can still have
facilities where they can build parts of detectors,
and so they can have experimentals actually doing
work at the university
and not having to do everything at serve.
So I know that. And so people do that,
but we don't we don't have facilities for that here.
>> Sure.
>> And that's why we're also
we have a much larger ratio of
Theorist Experimentalist here than
that in other universities because for that reason.
>> Yeah. But then so has become the hotspot.
>> Exactly.
>> Well, you started winning
prizes as soon as you got here.
Do we still have those foundation prizes?
>> No. Well,
I got a total of four foundation prizes,
and I think maybe
the last year was the last time I got it.
I believe I got in 2006,
2008, '12, and '14.
And I don't think they gave
anymore after that or soon after that, I started.
>> And the purpose of
the foundation prizes was to fund your research.
>> Well, it was basically recognition.
It's like the distinguished award, basically.
It's actually a recognition of a single paper
that was impactful.
So that's what they did.
So the very impactful paper,
and you had to prove that it was
impactful, and then you got the award.
>> So that's the one when Ken Herman,
was either provost or
acting president that he
read the title of your paper and said,
"I'm sure everybody's read this."
>> Yes. [LAUGHTER] That was one of the times.
The foundation prize is similar in a way to
the distinguished scholarship and
research awards that I also got.
I got three of those in '08,
although the name slightly changed.
In 2008, it was distinguished scholarship,
and then 2014 was
distinguished research and creative activity,
and then 2016 was
outstanding research and creative activity.
>> I didn't quite understand why we went
from distinguished to outstanding.
>> I think they slightly
changed the rules and the number.
>> And also, I guess we
used to have a number of those prizes each year,
at least each college could have one,
maybe or something like that.
But we had only one distinguished research award.
>> Exactly.
>> And I guess going from scholarship to
research was an implication that
we were becoming more R2 or R3 or whatever.
>> Yeah, possibly. I don't know
how they were decided my fear.
>> But I guess the prizes maybe got replaced with
each college being eligible to
have outstanding research award.
>> I think instead of giving foundation prizes,
they are giving now more than one outstanding award.
When I got my first two, there was
only one distinguished scholarship or research.
But then later on,
more recently, they can give more than one.
I think now they give two outstanding research awards.
And for a while, I think they will give
more actually, but then they went back to two.
So there has been some evolution
in this prize. They keep changing.
>> I see.
>> But I think in a way,
maybe they replaced the foundation prizes with
having multiple outstanding research awards,
except the single one that I used to get in the past.
>> Right. Well,
it's easier to do interviews when there's just one here.
>> That's right, yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
>> But you got the big one in 2020,
the Distinguished Professor Award.
[OVERLAPPING] Why don't you just talk a little bit
about what these awards have meant to you?
>> Well, actually, they meant a lot because
it's recognition,
and it's also a good chunk of money.
[LAUGHTER] But it's recognition
that the work I do is valued,
and so it has meant a lot to me,
and I guess
the University Distinguished Professor Award is
the combination of that because
as the house faculty owner.
So yes, I've been getting them for two decades,
but now I don't think I'm
eligible because now they said that
if you get it once you're not eligible,
[OVERLAPPING] Even research you can get more than once.
So the fact that I got
three research awards, you cannot do that anymore.
I'm not eligible anymore.
So I guess I'll get to stop.
[LAUGHTER]
>> [BACKGROUND] but it really is amazing
that our foundation has been so supportive, I think.
>> Yes.
>> With money?
>> I think so. Well, I think partly is to
make up for the salaries because our salaries,
of course, are not those of Georgia Tech.
So that, in a way,
was supposed to encourage people to work and hear
some remuneration and to
help you along with your research.
>> You can go teach in the business
coverage if you want more money.
>> That's true.
[LAUGHTER]
There is a disparity between different colleges.
Computer science also I think make more.
>> You could do computer science?
[LAUGHTER]
But you're doing what your passion is.
>> My passion, yeah exactly.
>> Which is what we all do.
>> That's right.
>> Well, there's another thing too
that I think it's very definitely worth talking about
is international recognition.
It's nice to have all this recognition on campus.
And you were talking in the earlier interview about
how this is one of the things that keeps you here.
In fact, you have been appreciated.
But you've also been appreciated internationally,
and I don't quite understand how they do the rankings,
but maybe you can tell us that you have
a top-ranking and fundamental physics
worldwide in 2018 and it was updated in 2021.
How is that measured?
>> Yeah. So first of all, that was the biggest honor
or distinction that I received.
There were a couple of physicists that serve, actually,
and they made this study
of how many citations people get.
But it's not just pure number of citations
because citations by themselves
can be very misleading because for example,
if you write a paper, for
example, big experimental elaborations,
where we have hundreds of thousands of people,
citations of a paper mean
nothing because they're divided.
>> Or if you can have multiple authors.
>> Exactly. If you have multiple authors,
how do you spell?
So they did a very sophisticated study
where they accounted
for number of co-authors in papers.
So they didn't just use just pure number of citations,
but they normalize that number by number of coauthor.
So basically divide by the number of coauthors.
And then they accounted for other things like what is
the normal citation rate in each subfield of physics.
Historically, also in the past,
people didn't get as many citations as now.
So they accounted they used very
sophisticated tools to account
for all these variables.
So they came up with a thing called individual citations.
So normalized by all this.
So I was rank Number 1 in
the world in fundamental physics since 2010.
>> In terms of citation?
>> In terms of individual citations, yeah.
>> But if you have three authors,
and you have to do three papers to get accounted for one?
>> That's right. Something like that.
>> But you know papers often have
the Number 1 researcher or
Number 1 author and then further author.
>> That's also true. But in my case,
most of my papers are single-offered.
There was no question about that.
>> Good project for some mathematicians, I guess so.
>> That's right. First of all, according to that,
not only was I Number 1 and not just in myself field,
but all over fundamental physics in.
Even astrophysics and other fields.
Not only was Number 1, but there was
a big gap between me and the second person.
And then they also used three other measures.
They call it author rank, which is actually the default,
the most important one, paper rank,
and then citation coin.
So author rank basically
accounts for the importance of your papers also,
via the connectivity to other papers.
So not only how many people cited to you,
but how important were the people who cited to you,
how important were the paper cited to you?
>> Oh my God.
>> So it's a very complicated analysis.
And that's actually the most important thing a rank.
And again, I was ranked Number 1.
And then they did similar thing.
>> Came to a ranking of who's more important than who?
>> Well, it's all interconnected.
The papers are cited how
important those papers were, and so on.
So then they had another thing called paper rank.
So again, Number 1 in that.
And finally, citation coin to basically exclude
subcitations and what they called citation cartels,
like a big group citing each other and so on.
So under all these four metrics,
I was ranked Number 1.
So that was a huge distinction here.
>> You know in the field of back history,
somebody may cite you just to
say that he got it all wrong.
>> Yes. That's also true,
but that's a very minimal thing in physics.
You don't get cited if you do things wrong.
[LAUGHTER]
That's not how it works.
>> This's quite an honor.
>> Yeah. And that was updated,
so it was published in 2019,
and then updated again 2021,
again. It's still the same.
>> So I don't even need to ask you what
it would mean to you [OVERLAPPING]
>> It was huge.
And it was a huge surprise. [LAUGHTER]
>> And I guess
that's one reason postdocs want to come here then.
>> That definitely helps. I knew
I had a high ranking before because
many of my papers were ranked among
the top 100 papers in physics year after year since 2005.
So that has happened about 50 times or so.
So I knew I was ranked very high,
but to be ranked Number 1 and under
all measures with such a gap with respect to the others,
that was a surprise. That I didn't expect.
>> How many papers have you published now?
>> Well, actually, I just realized
recently that overall,
I published 150 papers,
but I published exactly 100 papers since I came to KSU.
>> Is that right?
>> So I had 55 papers when I came here in August 2004,
and now I have 155,
so exactly 100 papers.
So that's a very round number.
>> And how many citations?
>> Overall, I have now
14,000/14,000 according to Google Scholar,
14,000 citations.
So I think it was in the thousands when I came,
but barely I don't remember if it
was 1,000 or two or something like that.
So it has exponentially increased.
>> It's amazing.
>> So I keep working.
>> Well, when we did the interview in 2014,
we were still in the process of
consolidating with Southern Polytechnic Tech University,
and they had a major in physics
and we did the Tennessee campus didn't.
And you got a physics major out of the consolidation?
>> Yes.
>> So and a physics department as well,
you're no longer in with biology?
>> Yes.
>> When we did the interview in 2014,
you weren't real clear where all this was going.
I don't even think you had a department chair
chosen yet at that time.
>> No department. We got our department chair in 2016.
The offices back then,
I wasn't even sure where the offices
would be, the administration,
the office of the chair is in Marietta,
but the factor split basically half-half,
half in Marietta and half are in Tennessee.
So because we teach on both campuses.
So we have to be on both.
>> So you don't necessarily
have to be running to that other campus?
>> No. I have only to run
there when I teach major classes
because they all are taught there.
So the introductory courses are taught on both campuses.
But the majors classes because this policy of
the university that you should be able to
complete a major without having
to travel between campuses.
So I do go there when
I teach an advanced course just to teach,
but Canvas is better. I like what I am.
>> But, well you can
ride the big bus down there if you want.
>> I drive. [LAUGHTER]
>> Well, let me just ask you from your perspective,
how has the consolidation worked out?
>> Well, we've definitely increased.
We've doubled our size more than double, but now triple.
>> You found about the campus as a whole.
The 43,000 students.
>> Yes. And so we have many faculty.
Now, about half tenure track, about half lecture.
So we have a order of 20 plus faculty.
So definitely much bigger number.
>> Twenty in physics?
>> Yes.
>> Wow.
>> Twenty plus. I don't remember the exact number.
If it's 23 [LAUGHTER] or 25.
Depends also how you're kind if you
include some temporary people also.
>> So that's about three times
as big as it was before in?
>> Something like that? Yes. Something like that.
So we have a major, we have students.
So we've grown a lot as that.
>> How have the students blended together?
The Kennesaw Campus students and I guess
the Marietta Campus students even in 2015.
Was there any difference in types of
students on the two different campuses?
>> About all academically,
I wouldn't say there's a huge difference.
I didn't see a major change teaching
introductory courses between those people
who are based in Kennesaw and
those are based in Marietta.
I think overall, academically in terms of students,
maybe our consolidation was one of the most successful
in the state of
Georgia in the sense of the level of the students.
If you compare there is IT course.
>> They were good on math on
what campus when we consolidated.
>> To be honest, I don't know
if there's a big difference.
I don't know if there's a big difference for Physics.
I don't know. And obviously,
again, we didn't have our own undergrads before.
>> Well, do any of
the engineering programs require Physics?
>> Yes.
>> So to what degree are you
servicing the College of Engineering?
>> To a large degree. So before
the consolidation, we didn't have engineering,
obviously, so it was mostly biology and
chemistry and then maybe some math and some other topics.
But now it's a big representation of
engineering in addition to chemistry and other.
>> And it oversimplifies things,
but Southern Poly I guess was noted for
the practical valve-oriented application
as opposed to theoretical.
Is that changing and to what degree did that affect
the students that you got in your Physics major?
>> Well, again, the major was there to begin with,
so we didn't have a change in major as such.
Now, the students,
of course, have more opportunities now.
There were a bigger department they
can work with people like me.
So they get more opportunities research-wise
because before the consolidation,
Southern Poly wasn't very much into research.
So that was the other big difference.
So now they have a lot more opportunity
to do research and,
like now faculty with grants.
There's a lot more opportunity for the students now.
>> Several faculty members from down there have won
distinguished professor awards in recent years.
>> Yeah, we know. [LAUGHTER]
>> What the hell, and so
they must be doing some research down there.
>> Well, now the requirements or
the expectations are the same for everyone.
It's now been eight years
since the consolidation started.
>> Fewer and fewer people remember
what it was before now, I guess.
>> Exactly. So I think
the expectations now are pretty uniform throughout.
>> Well, when we did the last interview,
I'd even forgotten the term comprehensive university,
but that was what we were called at that time.
That was a Georgia terminology to put us
with Georgia Southern and Valdosta
and West Georgia in
a secondary category below
the four research universities
but above the other state colleges and universities.
Research wasn't in our nomenclature
so much and as you mentioned,
R3 came in, and there's
no such thing as an R3 anymore, I don't think.
>> It's a different designation still.
>> I remember when our administrators were
discovering that it looked like we fit the R2 definition,
and then we had to persuade everybody else.
I guess we were in R3.
>> Well, I don't think it's a conflict
between the comprehensive title and the R2.
I think comprehensive is what the State
of Georgia considers us.
>> Or they still use that terminology?
>> I think so. I'm not sure, but I think so
because you could equally well say comprehensive as R2.
And then R1 is the top research universities.
So there's not necessarily a conflict between the two.
>> But there certainly has been an evolution.
You've talked about this a little bit already.
>> Absolutely.
>> How it has impacted you and all that you're doing.
And even in 2014,
I think you were down to teaching every other semester.
What were you facing in [inaudible]?
>> It's very similar. So basically,
I teach typically,
one introductory course in the fall,
and then now I teach a
special topics course in the spring.
So this semester,
I was teaching quantum field theory course
or the Physics quantum fields in particles.
So I have a light teaching load
because of my research. Because of that.
>> Basically, your grants buying you.
>> Yes.
>> Some free time and
it sounds like from what you're saying earlier,
is the university increasingly
supporting research by giving release time also?
>> Yes. In fact, our incoming faculty,
so the new tenure track faculty,
they have a very low teaching load because
they're expected to do research and get grants.
I think we're maybe
slowly getting to the point where even
though officially it's not
an absolute expectation to get a grant,
it's almost an expectation.
And I think we're moving that way.
>> Well, I think for history majors,
if they've got to take a science course,
physics is probably the last one that they were going to
take at least when I was back in,
when I had more contact with
history majors than I do nowadays.
Is that still the case that you basically get
people from the sciences
that take the introductory physics?
>> Yes. I think so. Because I think there's
a generic science course
that people who are not in science take.
So people in history and so on,
generically, they would take this as science course.
Of course, if they want, they can take physics.
But specific physics is
only required for some majors like engineering,
some engineering majors like
chemistry, biology, and so on.
>> Is that calculus based?
>> Both. Calculus based
is required for engineering, I guess,
and for at least part of the chemistry students,
and then biology, I think they can have the trick based.
Although they can take the calculus based if they want.
>> I haven't heard them take the calculus based.
>> Some, yeah. Exactly. Some of them do,
but not the majority, I think.
>> So teaching has adjusted
to the research that the individual is doing.
And I guess in physics,
do you have lectures you were saying earlier?
>> We do have many lectures.
It's about half in the department.
>> And so that'd be a non tenure track position?
>> Yes.
>> But full time.
>> Full time teaching.
>> Full time teaching without
expectation of research, I guess.
>> That's exactly right.
>> So they're taking the bulk of
the introductory but you're
teaching an introductory course. Is it?
>> Yeah, but they have a lot more.
So they have basically three times
the teaching load or roughly that.
So it's a different,
the number of courses that we teach and so on.
So I teach an introductory course,
but that's it and just the lectures now, no labs.
>> We've said a little bit about your work with
students and postdocs and so on.
But I wonder if you want to talk just a little bit more
about some of the students that have
worked with you and what work are they able to do,
particularly if they're undergraduate.
>> Yes. So it varies a lot
depending on the interests and abilities of the students.
So some of them would basically be
a directed study where basically they
will learn some things and maybe at the end,
do some very easy calculations.
But the best ones,
they could actually work either on analytical projects,
mathematical projects or coding or running codes,
computer codes, and then
many of them went ahead and gave
talks at the Southeastern meetings.
So the Southeastern Section of
the American Physical Society I had several students go
and give that and typically
undergraduates are welcome in these meetings.
The better ones, the more advanced ones
who actually wrote papers with me,
they gave talks even.
Matthew Forslund,
he gave talks at national and international meetings.
So it varies a lot.
There's a wide spectrum of ability and of
interest and of how long they will stay with
me and how much they will do.
It seems to me that there's
a major focus that solve to
have faculty work with
undergraduate students on research and,
there's a big conference each year on
campus or awards, such thing
>> And in fact, also, we hosted this anchor,
the National Undergraduate Conference.
So I can do referee some a tracks for that.
So we do try to
support undergraduate research and
have them present and and so on.
So I've definitely done that with my students.
>> You spoke a little bit about COVID affecting
your international travel and
doing things on the Zoom and so on.
How did it affect working person
to person with students over the last couple of years?
>> Everything had to be done online by
a Zoom or via teams or whatever.
So as I said,
conference stops working with other people,
students talking to students.
It all had to be done by teams or Skype
or conferences by a Zoom and so on.
I didn't affect my productivity
in terms of writing papers, I didn't affect that at all.
Because again, I don't need to
go to a lab or do anything like that.
So I could equally while work at home,
I have my computers at home.
So my productivity in the sense
of writing papers and doing
research wasn't affected at all.
What was affected was my ability to travel.
But then especially 2020
because the physics community hadn't
caught up yet and they hadn't
started the online conferences.
So for a while, for example,
had a conference I will cancel that was it.
They didn't they didn't have
the preparation to do it virtually.
But then the year after they did it virtually.
So 2020 was more of a dead year in terms of conferences
but then 2021 was fine
because everything was done virtually,
so I was able to give many talks and
even now, as I told you.
Although now it was going back to in person conferences.
So it was okay.
The main thing for me was that,
I couldn't travel in the summer to go to
Greece or things like that in 2020.
I didn't manage to go last year, 2021,
hoping to go this year,
but that was about it.
>> Say something about Dorian and Demetrius.
My sons. I think they were born in 2000,
if I remember correctly.
>> That's correct.
>> So they're getting up into the early 20s now?
>> They're 21.
>> I know you've been mighty proud of them
and they were doing
some pretty advanced stuff at
a very early age [inaudible].
Talk about them a little bit and what they're up to?
>> So they are both mathematics majors at Georgia Tech?
Although they've taken also several physics classes
and maybe one of them is doing a minor in physics.
>> I was going to
ask what they are doing in power in your first step.
>> Well, they were interested they begin
they were interested in everything.
And so for a while,
they thought they may go into physics or,
you know, or astrophysics or
particle physics or things like that.
But then they got involved in
math competitions when they were in
high school and they took very advanced math courses,
calculus and so on.
So they decided to go into pure math.
But still, as I said,
they took quantum mechanics at Georgia Tech,
and so they take several physics courses,
and so they enjoyed that as well.
So when they were already in high school,
they took many AP classes,
advanced placement and they even took
remote classes from Georgia Tech.
So Georgia Tech had actually
a program where the professor would
speak and they would watch him online.
So by the time they were admitted to Georgia Tech,
they were basically they had the standing
of sophomores or juniors almost.
So they could actually have already graduated.
But because they're interested in doing
professional work and going to graduate school
and eventually being math professors,
things like that, they want
to have as much background as possible
before they go to grad school and also to have
the strongest application possible.
So they're already doing research with professors.
They're already taking graduate classes.
In fact, from the first year they
as freshman they were taking graduate classes.
So they're taking a fourth year just
to beef up their resume,
so to speak, and take more graduate classes,
do more research, maybe published papers.
So I guess this fall
they will be applying to graduate school.
And and I guess they will officially graduate from
Georgia Tech in spring of next year.
>> Where are they looking for graduate to?
>> Well, all the top departments, the IVs,
IT tech stand for all the usual places,
but there are other place as well.
Probably will apply to Georgia Tech probably also.
So they haven't they haven't made the list.
>> They're going to go to the same school?
>> What same school like I did?
>> When they go to graduate school,
they're going to go to them?
>> I don't know.
It depends also whether they in the dame place.
>> It seems they're pretty close to each other.
>> They're pretty close. I hope actually,
I hope they end up in the same place.
Let's see. [LAUGHTER].
>> Well, I don't know whether I'll be around
in eight years from now to do
another interview with you,
so why don't just conclude by asking
you what you see is your future?
You're at early 50s now, I guess.
>> I'm 53.
You got another decade
or two or so generation at tern out you wanted to stay.
What are your plans?
>> Well, my plans are first of all,
to keep working, keep doing good work.
So keep my research active,
try to grow the particle physics footprint here,
the group and, keep getting grants,
hiring post docs, attracting students.
So basically that's what I'm interested in
professionally is working
on theoretical particle physics,
and my hope is that the LAC
will keep producing data and
maybe we have some unexpected discovery.
So in a way,
it's more of the same but it's basically
enlarged the particle physics presence
here and keep hiring good people.
If we hire more faculty,
keep hiring the best people we
can find and the same thing with postbox and so on.
So that would be my my goals.
This would be my goals for the at least the medium term.
>> Well, is there anything that you like
them put in the interview that we haven't talked about?
>> Nothing as to. No. I think
we've covered pretty much everything.
>> Well, thank you very much.
>> Thank you, Ton