The physicist of the week at the DPG (German Physical Society) comes from the Technische Universität Dresden (TUD) and is called Stefanie Todt. Stefanie is a particle physicist at the Dresden University of Technology (TUD) and part of the ATLAS experiment  at CERN (European Center for Particle Physics Research).

The award is granted by the DPG's Equal Opportunities Working Group, which introduces an inspiring female physicist and her field of research every week. Stefanie Todt received the title in calendar week 2 in 2024.

Stefanie´s research focuses on scattering processes among electroweak gauge bosons. Including triple and quartic electroweak self-coupling interactions as well as the exchange of a Higgs boson, these scattering processes are an excellent tool for studying the delicate interplay of the gauge structure and the electroweak symmetry-breaking mechanism of the Standard Model (SM).

Her research projects examine the scattering of two same-charge W± bosons and contributed to the first observation of a process containing vector boson scattering with data from the ATLAS experiment at the LHC.

Furthermore, she studies the effects of an effective field theory (EFT) model describing beyond SM extensions that generate anomalous quartic gauge couplings in the electroweak sector.

For over 10 years, she has been active in outreach, mentoring, and supervision. As a mediator for particle physics, she participates in national and international masterclasses for high school students organized by the Netzwerk Teilchenwelt. She likes presenting and discussing her research field in public, at events such as Science in Pubs or the 35c3 (35th Chaos Communication Congress).

Standing for a supportive and appreciative scientific community, she has been the spokesperson for the German Ph.D. and young scientists representatives in the ATLAS experiment.

Physicist of the week
 Chair of Particle Physics at TU Dresden