The Observer of Dark Matter
Professor Elisabetta Barberio · Particle Physics, University of Melbourne
About the sitter
Professor Elisabetta Barberio
Elisabetta Barberio was a staff researcher at CERN, working on the OPAL experiment at the Large Electron–Positron Collider, where precision measurements confirmed the theory of fundamental particle behaviour to extraordinary accuracy. She went on to play a significant role in the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider. She holds the Thomas H. Laby Chair in the School of Physics at the University of Melbourne.
She initiated Australia’s direct dark matter detection program, which led to the construction of the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory, the only underground physics laboratory in the Southern Hemisphere. A kilometre of rock above the lab screens out the cosmic radiation that would otherwise drown the signal. There she leads SABRE, Australia’s first dark matter direct detection experiment, using ultra-pure sodium iodide crystals to look for a particle that has never been observed and that may account for the great majority of the matter in the universe. She is Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics.
About the painting
She holds one of the crystals. It is the most resolved thing in the picture, an instrument built to register what cannot otherwise be seen. Everything behind her dissolves into the wave field: the invisible matter she has spent her career searching for, present everywhere and visible nowhere.