Motivated. Outstanding. Enthusiastic. These are the criteria used when selecting the recipients of the ATLAS PhD Grant – it is a tough competition.

Chilufya Mwewa, a Zambian-born particle physicist, was one of the recipients of the ATLAS PhD grant in 2017. Her fascination for physics started when she attended the African School of Physics, back in 2010.

It was here where she first heard about particle physics – it captured her interest immediately.

Chilufya is currently finalizing her PhD thesis on the study of two same sign W bosons, using data collected by the ATLAS experiment. She also aims at applying for a post-doc position, aspiring to work on electroweak physics or Higgs physics with some aspect of detector development.

“Being awarded the ATLAS PhD grant was a milestone in my career because it allowed me to spend more than one year based at CERN and collaborate closely with members of the ATLAS team.”