Dr. Bindi's main research topics are the study of dark matter, cosmic rays, solar modulation of cosmic rays, solar energetic particles, and space radiation for future manned missions to the Moon and Mars. She graduated in astronomy and got her PhD in Physics at the University of Bologna in Italy. From 2002 at the INFN (Italian National Institute for Nuclear research), based at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Switzerland, she has been part of the team that constructed and integrated the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) instrument, which has been in operation on the International Space Station since 2011.
Since 2012, Dr. Bindi has been a Professor in the Physics Department of the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM). Her group, composed of post docs, research assistants, and several undergraduate students, is involved in the data analysis of the AMS instrument. The current analysis topic is solar modulation of cosmic rays and the study of solar energetic particles with AMS-02. She is the PI of a long-term grant with NASA and she received an NSF (National Science Foundation) career award. She has published several papers in peer reviewed journals, she has been invited as a keynote speaker in several international conferences, and she is the organizer of an annual international workshop that brings together major world experts in her fields. In 2019, Dr. Bindi was working in the Heliophysics and Strategic Integration and Management Divisions at NASA Headquarters in Washington DC.
Dr. Bindi teaches calculus-based physics to engineering and science majors. As a member of several committees, she is working to improve the physics curriculum and learning outcomes at UHM, and to implement new methods for recruitment of physics majors.
Dr. Bindi is dedicated to increasing the diversity in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields and facilitating the participation of underrepresented groups. In 2013, she was featured in the European Institute for Gender Equality's Women Inspiring Europe initiative. In 2020 she is Special Assistant to the Vice Chancellor of Research for diversity, equity and inclusion.
Dr. Bindi has participated in multiple outreach activities for middle and high school students as a lecturer and organizer. She is the Quarknet mentor in Hawaii and a TED educator (Her TED animation about cosmic rays is available online). Since 2015 she has been a scientific partner for ARTS@CERN and inspiring partner for the visiting artists Fragment.In. In spring 2016, at the Lorenzo de Medici Institute in Florence (Italy), as resident director for study abroad, she designed and taught a course that provides a wonderful insight into how science and art are deeply interconnected.
bindi [at] hawaii [dot] edu
website: www.veronicabindi.com
Since 2013, Cristina is a Post-Doc at the University of Hawaii.
She graduated in Physics at the Universita' Degli Studi di Milano and did her master degree thesis on the Polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background in 2005. From 2005 to 2006 she had a fellowship with ST-Microelectronics and INFN-Milano Bicocca to work on space radiation damage qualification for semiconductors devices.
From 2006 to 2009 she was a PhD student at Universita' degli Studi di Milano Bicocca and has her doctorate degree in physics and astronomy on the displacement damage induced by cosmic rays in silicon devices using GEANT4 toolkit for space applications. During this period she was working at CERN where she became a collaborator of the GEANT4 group for developing the Coulomb scattering model.
From 2009 to 2012 she was working at Universita' degli Studi di Milano Bicocca on the study of the sun modulation effects on cosmic ray fluxes observed by the AMS-02 experiment and on the study of radiation hardness components for astrophysics and space physics applications. In 2011, she was part of the team at the Johnson Space Center during the installation on the ISS of AMS-02.
Since 2013, she is working for the University of Hawaii AMS- group as a post. doc. She is one of the coordinators of the AMS low-energy group at CERN, fully working on the proton and helium time variation fluxes. She gave her major contribution to the AMS analysis in the PRL paper publish in 2018 on the monthly proton and helium fluxes. She is currently working on the daily flux analysis.
cconsola [at] hawaii [dot] edu
Claudio Corti is a Post-Doc at the University of Hawaii.
Claudio completed a B.S. in General Physics (2009) and a M.S. in Particle Physics (2012) from Pisa University (Italy).
He got his PhD in July 2017 in Astroparticle Physics with Prof. Veronica Bindi at University of Hawaii. During the five years as a graduate student he helped in writing grants and setting up the AMS-02 computer farm at University of Hawaii and he participated in numerous outreach activities for middle and high school students in Oahu and Maui, collaborating with school teachers and education specialists.
For his PhD thesis, he contributed to the AMS-02 data analysis for the time variation of proton fluxes, focusing on the study of the energy losses in the detector, the errors in the AMS electronics due to radiation damages and the unfolding of the flux.
He also spent three months at the North-West University in South Africa, where he studied the theory of solar modulation of cosmic rays with Prof. Marius Potgieter, developing a numerical code for the propagation of cosmic rays in the heliosphere.
He enriched his education by attending PhD summer schools in Europe (ESHEP, ISAPP, ISCRA) and the NASA Space Radiation Summer School at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
corti [at] hawaii [dot] edu
Matteo Palermo is a Post-Doc at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
He studied Physics at the University of Perugia (Italy) where he completed the B.S in early 2009. He also got the Master degree in particle Physics in 2011 at the University of Perugia. During the Master, he performed a study on the Silicon Tracker efficiencies for the AMS-02 experiment.
From February 2012 to June 2016, he worked as a PhD student at the Max-Planck-Institute for Physics, Munich (Germany). During the latter period, he worked on germanium detector development for future generation experiments in the framework of low-background Physics. Specifically, his research was oriented to neutrinoless double-beta decay searches. Moreover, he designed and performed a brand new experiment, still operative, to measure muon-induced neutrons: the Muon-Induced Neutrons Indirect Detection EXperiment (MINIDEX). The MINIDEX run-I data were used to validate Monte Carlo studies. He received his Ph.D in particle Physics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich.
In November 2016 he joined the Low-Energy AMS-02 group of Prof. V. Bindi, working on time-variation studies of galactic cosmic rays.
mpalermo [at] hawaii [dot] edu
Students
Chris Light is a graduate student in the University of Hawaii at Manoa physics department.
He earned a B.S. degree in physics from the University of Idaho and is currently working on a PhD in physics with Dr. Bindi.
lightc [at] hawaii [dot] edu
Andrew Kuhlman is a physics graduate student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He received a B.S. in physics and a B.A. in chemistry from Syracuse University in Syracuse, NY.
Andrew is currently working under Dr. Bindi towards a PhD in physics.
ackuhlma [at] hawaii [dot] edu
Christopher Freeman is a physics graduate student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Christopher is currently working under Dr. Bindi towards a PhD in physics.
clfree [at] hawaii [dot] edu
Siqi Wang is a physics graduate student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa since Spring 2018.
She received her B.S. in physics from Wuhan University in China in July 2017.
Siqi is working on AMS analysis, under the supervision of Prof. Bindi and is pursuing a physics PhD degree.
siqiwang [at] hawaii [dot] edu