Biography:

Wangmei Zha is a Professor in experimental high-energy nuclear physics. He has long been active in the RHIC/STAR program and is expanding into CMS heavy-ion physics. His research focuses on photon-induced processes in relativistic heavy-ion collisions, including vector-meson photoproduction, interference/polarization observables, and strong-field QED/QCD phenomena. He has authored and co-authored 40+ refereed papers in leading journals (e.g., Phys. Rev. Lett., Sci. Adv.) and contributes to international collaboration service and analysis coordination.

Research:

Photon-induced processes in heavy-ion collisions, with emphasis on photoproduction, polarization/interference observables, and strong-field QED/QCD physics.

What You Can Expect in the Project:

Students will join a full analysis chain for photon-induced measurements: MC modeling, event/track selection, signal extraction, and systematics. Possible topics include neutron-tag studies with ZDC and polarization-sensitive observables. The goal is a reproducible workflow and an analysis note.

Desired Skill and Background:

Basic particle/nuclear physics background and strong motivation, plus programming in Python/C++ (ROOT/Linux/Git experience is a plus).