Professor Dr. Rupak Mahapatra

Biography

Rupak Mahapatra joined Texas A&M Department of Physics and Astronomy in 2008 after earning his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 2000, followed by postdoctoral work at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a member of the George P. Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy and is recognized as an international expert in high-energy particle physics, with significant experience in building particle detectors and analyzing related data. Mahapatra received the Department of Energy Early Career Research Award in 2010 and has been the principal investigator on the international Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (SuperCDMS) experiment since 2003. In 2017, he founded the Mitchell Institute Neutrino Experiment Reactor (MINER) at the Texas A&M Nuclear Science Center, which uses advanced low-threshold detectors to detect background signals in the search for new physics beyond the Standard Model. In 2023, his detectors contributed to the launch of TESSERACT, a leading dark matter search experiment approved by the Department of Energy. He is actively involved in developing next-generation detectors using materials like germanium, silicon, gallium arsenide, and sapphire, as well as custom semiconductor fabrication tools.

Research Interests

Experience

Awards