With the imminent advent of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the recent wealth of cosmological results, this is an exciting time in particle physics and cosmology. Data from the LHC will greatly deepen our understanding of the fundamental interactions and in particular the mechanism behind electroweak symmetry breaking. Recent discoveries in astrophysics and cosmology may also shed light on electroweak physics. The research of the UC Irvine group exploits innovative ideas in both particle physics and cosmology to address problems in a wide variety of fields, including supersymmetric and extra dimensional model building, collider phenomenology, cosmology and the early universe, particle astrophysics, string theory and quantum gravity, and lattice field theory. The group will also investigate consequences of these ideas for the LHC and other upcoming landmark experiments. The broader impacts of the group's activities are directed towards increasing public interest in and improving public understanding of the exciting results of particle physics. The group plays an essential role in UC Irvine's QuarkNet program, where high school teachers and their students are introduced to current research in High Energy physics. These efforts will be complemented by additional public outreach activities, the training of postdoctoral researchers and graduate students, and professional service.
