Ayana Holloway Arce facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Ayana Holloway Arce
Arce in 2017
Alma mater	Harvard University Princeton University
Scientific career
Institutions	Duke University Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Ayana Tamu Arce (née Holloway) is an American physicist and a professor at Duke University. She studies tiny particles, using information from the Large Hadron Collider. Her goal is to learn about things that are beyond our current understanding of how the universe works.

Becoming a Scientist: Ayana Arce's Journey

Ayana Arce was born in Lansing, Michigan. She loved science and decided to study physics.

Her College Years

• She went to Princeton University for her first degree.
• She graduated with high honors in 1998.

Earning Her PhD

• After Princeton, she went to Harvard University to get her PhD.
• For her research, she worked at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, also known as Fermilab.
• At Fermilab, she helped with a special detector called the Collider Detector.
• She finished her PhD in 2006.

Ayana Arce's Family

Ayana Arce comes from a family of smart people!

• Her mother, Karla, is also a professor at Duke University. She teaches English and Law. She is very interested in African American culture.
• Her father, Russell Holloway, is a computer scientist. He also works at Duke University in the engineering school.

What Ayana Arce Studies: Particle Physics

After getting her PhD, Dr. Arce continued her research. She joined Duke University in 2010.

Exploring Tiny Particles

• She worked at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
• There, she studied how to measure the features of very heavy, unstable particles. These particles don't last long!
• At Duke, she became a special fellow in 2012.

Working with the ATLAS Experiment

• Dr. Arce works on the ATLAS experiment. This is a huge project at the Large Hadron Collider.
• She helps with a part of the detector called the calorimeter. This part measures the energy of particles.
• Her work helps scientists understand "jet substructure." This is about how groups of particles, called "jets," are formed.
• She also studies "diboson resonances." This helps find new, heavy particles.

Inspiring Future Scientists

• In 2017, Dr. Arce and her mother were part of a special event at Duke University. It celebrated 50 years of Black professors.
• She was very inspired by the movie Hidden Figures. This movie showed the important work of Black women in science.
• Dr. Arce talks about how to get more people of color interested in science jobs.
• She is part of a group called the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory. This group helps college students do summer research in physics.

See also

In Spanish: Ayana Holloway Arce para niños