Protons and neutrons make up the vast majority of all visible matter in the universe. Their structure and interactions are governed by the physics of the strong force and its gauge theory: quantum chromodynamics (QCD). I am fascinated by the complexity QCD, its features and emergent phenomena. The emergence of nucleons, and hadrons in general, from a strongly interacting system of quarks and gluons is one of the fundamental question of modern nuclear physics. My research focuses on the following open questions:
- What is the gluonic structure of the proton?
- How does the mass of the proton emerge from its gluonic structure?
- Does the presence of a nuclear potential modify the proton ground state?
- Why does a quark, when removed from a proton, dress itself into a jet of new hadrons?
As an experimental physicist, I design, conduct and analyze experiments to come closer to a more full understanding of the strong force, and the nature of complex, strongly interacting systems in general. My expertise lies with exclusive channels through electron-proton scattering, such as deeply-virtual meson production (DVMP) and deeply-virtual Compton scattering (DVCS), as well as semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering (SIDIS).