Bio: Farida Fassi, Professor & Senior Researcher, Mohammed V University in Rabat, Faculty of Science, Morocco
Farida Fassi is a Professor of Physics and Particle Physicist at the Faculty of Science of Mohammed V University in Rabat. She is a Follow of the African Academy of Sciences, Affiliate Researcher to the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Visiting Scientist at “Instituto de Física Corpuscular” (IFIC), Spain and a Visiting Professor at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom.
In 1996, after completing her BSc from the University of Abdelmalek Essaâd in Morocco, she went to Spain to continue higher education. In 1999, she obtained her MSc and earned her Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Valencia, Spain in 2002. She was awarded with the European Ph.D. in Physics in recognition of her contribution in the ATLAS experiment at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). In 2003, she was granted a research fellowship at CSIC. In 2007, she was awarded a High-level postdoctoral research position at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) to work for the CMS experiment at the “Institut de physique nucléaire de Lyon”. She was the French´s Tier-1 contact person at CERN and a research scientist. In 2011, she was a research associate at the Spanish Center for Particle, Astroparticle and Nuclear Physics. She contributed in the LHC experiments, ATLAS and CMS, that led to the major scientific discovery of the 21th century; the Higgs Boson.
Her research interests include various aspects of theoretical and experimental particle physics. This involves performing search for new physics and phenomena that are motivated by the presence of dark matter in our universe. Her current main interests are the search for a hidden or dark sector at LHC. These new states can be produced using, for example, exotic Higgs boson decays to light scalars, light vectors or associated productions as a portal to this hidden or dark sector that has remained inaccessible up to now. Since 2013, she is also the coordinator for the ATLAS Distributed Analysis support team and expert of ATLAS Distributed Computing team.
She is the co-founder of the “African Strategy for Fundamental Applied Physics” and member of scientific committee of the “African School of Fundamental Physics and Applications”.
In terms of teaching effectiveness to promote research science physics in Africa, and in particular in Morocco, she plays a leadership role in developing a network of researchers through numerous collaborative International Scientific Programs.
Scientific production:
Abstract: "Gathering Nations through Global Science Research"
The last few decades have witnessed the creation of Big Data that has revolutionised the knowledge outcomes within and beyond multi-disciplinary science, enabling novel highly efficient ways to plan, conduct, disseminate and assess research. Global research projects demonstrate what humankind is able to achieve the most challenging goals when collaborating together coherently towards a common target. Science and the scientific knowledge transfer dissemination facilitate the dialogue among cultures and are the key instrument in fostering peaceful relations between nations. The Arab world has the ability to use science for the benefit of its people. Therefore, it is vital for the contemporary Arab world to strengthen its commitment to the modern and global scientific projects, contributing to long-term sustainable training through committed investments in research and development. International associations are a great common denominator in the culture of scientific activities. Particle physics field looks at the most fundamental structure of the universe – the particles that are its most basic building blocks, and the ways they interact with each other. The field has always been an early adopter of new technologies, applying them in the state-of-the-art discovery machines and experiments that produce floods of Big Data that can be analysed anytime and anywhere using shared and interlinked of heterogeneous research data via large digital research infrastructures. The talk will address the role of such global research projects in science, including Big Science era, to carrying the light of learning through global collaboration, in particular at CERN, producing the best scientists and innovators the world has ever seen. What can be achieved from such global science endeavours? The talk will describe the fascinating mixture of science bridging cultures and nations.
