Professor Tejinder Virdee joins New College of the Humanities as a Visiting Professor of Science
London, UK (PRWEB UK) 1 April 2014 -- New College of the Humanities (NCH) announces today that Professor Tejinder Virdee FRS will join the College as Visiting Professor of Science.
He joins Professor Richard Dawkins, Professor Daniel C Dennett, Professor Lawrence M Krauss and Professor Steven Pinker who contribute to the Science Literacy module, one of New College of the Humanities’ compulsory Core Modules. The Science Literacy module is designed to help students of humanities subjects develop an intelligent insight into central areas of science.
Professor Virdee is best known for originating, with four other colleagues, the concept and overseeing the construction of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Colliderr, with four other colleagues; he has been referred to as one of the 'founding fathers' of the project. In July 2012 CMS, along with the ATLAS experiment, announced the discovery of a Higgs boson that merited led to the award of the 2013 Physics Nobel Prize to the theorists who discovered the mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of fundamental particles. CMS is now a world-wide collaboration which started in 1990 and has over 3000 participants from 38 countries.
In 2013 he was awarded the European Physical Society’s High Energy Particle Physics Prize, and in 2012 he was awarded the Special Fundamental Physics Prize, and in 2009 the Institute of Physics awarded him the Chadwick Medal and Prize.
A C Grayling, Master of New College of the Humanities, said: 'It is a special pleasure to welcome Tejinder Virdee to our distinguished Visiting Professoriate; as one of the leading physicists in CERN's discovery of the Higgs Boson he is an outstanding award-winning scientist who is also a brilliant communicator, and our undergraduates will benefit from his contributions to the intellectual life of the College and the Science Literacy component of the core curriculum.'
New College of the Humanities combines the best of the broader US liberal arts tradition with the depth of a single honours undergraduate degree taught through high-intensity, one-to-one and small group teaching. In addition to the standard12-module undergraduate degree, all NCH students study a further eight modules. These comprise four modules from another degree subject or Art History, Classical Studies or Psychology as a contextual course and three Core Modules in Applied Ethics, Logic & Critical Thinking and Science Literacy. All students also follow the College’s Professional Programme.
The College’s rolling applications process is independent of UCAS and applications can be made in addition to the five UCAS choices, and can still be made for entry in 2014. Visit http://www.NCHum.org for all enquiries and applications.
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For further information, please contact:
Desi Lyon
T: 020 7291 1385
E: press.office(at)nchum(dot)org
Notes to Editors
About New College of the Humanities
New College of the Humanities (NCH) offers a new model of higher education for the humanities in the UK. NCH students enjoy one of the best staff-to-student ratios in UK higher education and benefit from a high number of quality contact hours as well as engaging and challenging one-to-one tutorials.
Our professors are international experts in their fields and our full time academic staff members have been selected for their proven ability for teaching in addition to their research interests.
NCH prepares students for undergraduate degrees in: Economics BSc, English BA, History BA, Law LLB, Philosophy BA, Politics & International Relations BSc.
The College is centrally located in Bloomsbury, London’s university district and students, as associate members of the University of London, have access to many of the resources of the University of London: the exceptional library in Senate House, the University of London Union, sports facilities, and many other opportunities to enrich themselves through extra-curricular activity.
About Professor Tejinder Virdee
Tejinder Virdee is Professor of Physics at Imperial College. He is primarily distinguished for the design, construction and exploitation of the huge CMS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. He originated the concept of CMS with four colleagues around 1990 and there are now over 3000 participants from 38 countries. A prime motivation was the search for the mass generating mechanism for matter, now revealed by the discovery of a Higgs boson, and the nature of what lies beyond the Standard Model. Virdee devised a new technology for the large CMS electromagnetic calorimeter and one of his earlier innovations was employed for the hadron calorimeter. He was leader of the collaboration during final commissioning and first data taking between 2006 and 2009. The superb performance of CMS since high energy collisions began at the LHC is testimony to his foresight, expertise and appreciation of the complex interplay of techniques which are needed for such success. Virdee had a key involvement in the discovery of a Higgs boson in CMS, announced on 4th July 2012, which was seen especially strongly in the electromagnetic calorimeter.
Desi Lyon, New College of the Humanities Ltd, +44 2074007398, [email protected]
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