MIT Kavli Institute Directory

Alexander F. Leder

Graduate Student, Physics Student

Affiliations:MIT Kavli Institute, MIT Laboratory for Nuclear Science

I was born in Germany to German and Mexican parents and moved to the United States where I then attended High School and later on did my undergrad at the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. My international background has helped me greatly in experiencing the world around us. My first experience with physics came when a family friend invited me to a public physics lecture series at the University of Karlsruhe. During these lectures I realized my passion for explaining the world around me and thus started down the path to becoming a Physicist. When not in the lab or office, my hobbies include: model railroading (be sure to visit the Tech Model Railroad Club one day), photography and cooking.

Research interests:

My current interests lie in the field of Experimental Particle Physics, with a focus on instrumentation. How does one go about building modern-day detectors to detect particles such as the neutrino or the now famous Higgs-Boson. My past work involved helping develop the next generation of pixelated detector for future neutrinoless double beta decay studies. Currently I am working with Proessor Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano in the Ricochet Experiment and CDMS groups working on developing the detectors as well as the data acquisition setups.

Representative publications:

A Study of Pixelated CdZnTe Detector Setups for Future 0___ Decay Searches, Undergraduate Thesis. Work performed at the Louisiana State University under Dr. Thomas Kutter.