Michel Lefebvre

Background and research interests

Prof. Lefebvre's research focuses on the exploration of the laws of physics at the energy frontier through the study of proton-proton collisions recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider, CERN, Switzerland.

Following activities in the UA2 experiment at CERN's proton-antiproton collider, Prof. Lefebvre acted as founding spokesperson of the ATLAS Canada Collaboration in 1992.  He contributed to the development and construction of liquid argon electromagnetic and hadronic calorimetry, and led the construction at the University of Victoria of related cryogenics components now operational on the ATLAS detector.  The excellent performance of the ATLAS electromagnetic calorimeter was key to the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012.  His current interests include ATLAS energy measurement performance, precision electroweak measurements, Higgs boson properties, the search for Dark Matter, and improvements of the ATLAS detector for the high luminosity upgrades of the LHC.  He lead the University of Victoria ATLAS group from 1992 to 2003, and again from 2015 to March 2018.  He held many responsibilities within the ATLAS Collaboration. He chaired the NSERC Subatomic Physics Evaluation Section in 2009-2010, was a member of the Board of Management of the TRIUMF Laboratory.  He is currently the UVic representative on the TRIUMF Science Council.  Prof. Lefebvre is a recipient of the University of Victoria Craigdarroch Silver Medal for Research Excellence.

Prof. Lefebvre enjoys teaching undergraduate and graduate courses, and strives to convey the excitement and beauty of physics in his lectures.  He acted as Graduate Advisor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy from 2007 to 2010.  He is a recipient of the University of Victoria Science Award for Teaching Excellence.

Subatomic Smash: The Quest for the Higgs Boson, public talk given by Prof. Lefebvre on April 9th 2013, one of UVic's 50th Anniversary Signature Events.

Research interests

• Electroweak physics
• Quantum Chromodynamics physics
• Dark Matter search at the LHC
• Particle detectors