The University of Maryland’s First-Year Innovation & Research Experience (FIRE) program encourages students to delve into research. In one of the FIRE streams, Simulating Particle Detection (SPD), the students explore high-energy physics under the tutelage of Dr. Müge Karagöz, with advising contributions by Prof. Sarah Eno and Associate Prof. Alberto Belloni.  The curriculum focuses on the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment of CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The LHC is also home to the LHCb experiment; UMD physicists collaborate in both.

The 2020 SPD Summer Scholars were Ojo Akinwale, David Bour, Fred Angelo Garcia, Kevin Liang, Drew Melis, Norman Moon, Joao Pereira and Kate Sturge. While the primary focus of the summer program was assessing the performance of the High-Granularity Calorimeter as part of the CMS detector upgrades, the group also wanted to acknowledge the COVID-19 relief efforts made by CERN personnel and the wider high-energy community. Collaborating remotely, they  produced a video describing such efforts.

Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdFZlSFefQY