Prof. Phiala E Shanahan

Professor Shanahan’s research interests are focussed around theoretical nuclear and particle physics. In particular, she works to understand the structure and interactions of hadrons and nuclei from the fundamental (quark and gluon) degrees of freedom encoded in the Standard Model of particle physics. Shanahan’s recent work has focused in particular on the role of gluons, the force carriers of the strong interactions described by Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), in hadron and nuclear structure; using analytic tools and high performance supercomputing, she recently achieved the first calculation of the gluon structure of light nuclei, making predictions which will be testable in new experiments proposed at Jefferson National Accelerator Facility and at the planned Electron-Ion Collider. She has also undertaken extensive studies of the role of strange quarks in the proton and light nuclei which sharpen theory predictions for dark matter cross-sections in direct detection experiments. To overcome computational limitations in QCD calculations for hadrons and in particular for nuclei, Professor Shanahan is pursuing a program to integrate modern machine learning techniques in computational nuclear physics studies.