New Honda Fellow working on the DEAP Experiment at SNOLAB

The latest in a series of Honda Fellows, sponsored by Honda Canada is working on the DEAP experiment at SNOLAB. Yuuki Nakano is here on a three-month exchange from the University of Tokyo. He is a graduate student who has been working with Professor Nakahata on the SuperKamiokande experiment at the Kamioka underground laboratory in Japan. At SNOLAB, he will be working on the final stage of construction of the DEAP experiment which will use about 4 tons of liquid argon for very sensitive measurements of Dark Matter particles thought to make up around 25% of our Universe.

The Honda Fellow program, created by a generous donation from Honda Canada, has been very successful in fostering scientific cooperation between Japan and Canada and providing unique educational experiences for students from both countries. To date, there have been two other Japanese graduate students who have spent three month periods at SNOLAB and three Canadian students who have worked for three months each at Kamioka. The two underground laboratories are among the most active in the world in the field of particle astrophysics and have been housing some of the most sensitive experiments for measurements of neutrinos from astrophysical sources and for Dark Matter particles.  Previous Honda Fellows have gone on to very successful careers in science, including postdoctoral and faculty positions in physics and have praised the experience that they received during their time as a Honda Fellow.

During his time at SNOLAB, Yuuki will be working closely with Dr. Chris Jillings, SNOLAB Research Scientist and Professor Mark Boulay, Principal Investigator of the DEAP-3600 experiment.