Rate My Professor Tova Holmes

Tova Holmes is an Associate Professor of Experimental High Energy Particle Physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She received her PhD in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 2016, after which she conducted postdoctoral research as a Fellow at the Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago. In August 2020, Holmes joined the University of Tennessee, Knoxville as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2025. Her career trajectory reflects a commitment to advancing experimental techniques in particle physics, with extensive experience in constructing and commissioning tracking detectors for the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider.

Holmes directs a dynamic research program centered on probing beyond-Standard-Model physics, particularly novel signatures of supersymmetry, dark matter, and long-lived particles at the LHC. Her group specializes in unconventional analyses, including displaced taus and strongly interacting massive particles, employing cutting-edge Field-Programmable Gate Array technology for real-time data processing in the CMS Level-1 Trigger upgrade for the High-Luminosity LHC era. She is at the forefront of next-generation collider development, leading the US Muon Collider Collaboration and spearheading detector design and on-detector algorithms, supported by a 2025 Simons Foundation Targeted Grant. Holmes has co-authored highly cited publications such as "Performance of the ATLAS trigger system in 2015" (The European Physical Journal C, 2017), "Luminosity Determination in pp Collisions at √s=7 TeV Using the ATLAS Detector" (2011), and "Muon reconstruction performance of the ATLAS detector in proton-proton collision data at √s=13 TeV" (The European Physical Journal C, 2016). Her contributions have earned her the 2025 Sloan Research Fellowship, Department of Energy Early Career Award, Cottrell Scholar Award, University of Tennessee College of Arts & Sciences Professional Promise in Research and Creative Award, and selection as a Fermilab LHC Physics Center Distinguished Researcher for 2026. Holmes frequently delivers public lectures and colloquia on muon colliders at institutions including the University of Illinois and Stanford University, and she was featured on BBC Radio 4's Science in Action discussing collider futures. Her work shapes the trajectory of high-energy physics instrumentation and discovery strategies.