Nicolas Angelides

Schools, Talks, Conferences & Outreach

My story

I was born in the city of Limassol, Cyprus on September 1996. As the youngest of three sons, one could say that my upbringing was not expected to be extraordinary in any way. I soon discovered two passions that began shaping me into the person I am today; learning and creating. Pursuing these endeavours began as afternoon activities in Fine Art, and GCSE Maths and Physics. Artist Spyroulla Skordi, a mentor and close friend, took me under her wing as a student in sculpture. At her studio I found myself not only surrounded by lessons in art but also spiritually enriched through philosophy and literature underlining the human need to produce art. This spiritual and intellectual enrichment I treasure and I carry with me to this day. As the afternoon lessons progressed school seemed less and less interesting. A turning point in my education came with a decision to focus on the afternoon lessons, moving onto A-Levels at the age of 16 while dropping out of what had been my 2nd year of high school. A brave step out of line that took exaclty as much nerve as 16-year-old me had.

University application season came and went and I was lucky enough to be accepted at the University of Edinburgh's Theoretical Physics Mphys programme. Four years in Edinburgh brought me close to some of the most important people in my life but also introduced me to a great set of mentors. Dr Paolo Beltrame and Prof. Alex Murphy, pillar memebers of the Dark Matter group, accelerated my development as a physicist and researcher.

Being accepted to the PhD programme at UCL I had found a new home filled equally with cosmologists and particle physicists in the heart of London. My topic included some themes from Cosmology, as well as joining the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) collaboration. During the 4 years that spanned my PhD program, I also spent a total of 7 months in the Black Hills of South Dakota, where I helped construct the LZ main detector. As the COVID-19 pandemic took over the world I finished my PhD by delivering the first background measurement of LZ, and got accepted to my first Postdoc at Imperial College London. As soon as my Postdoc started, I joined the core team of LZ analysers that were responsible for delivering the world leading results on Dark Matter direct detection. Around the same time I also expanded my family by adopting a wonderful Whippet - his name is Cosmo.

Cosmo and I have now moved to the University of Zurich where I have just started my second Postdoc on liquid xenon detectors. Even though I still participate in LZ, with this position I have shifted my attention from LZ exploitation more towards R&D work for liquid xenon detectors.