I am a Deaf, post-doctoral, experimental particle physicist involved with the ATLAS collaboration looking for signs of new physics Beyond the Standard Model. I care about boosted object reconstruction, hadronic final states, jet substructure, pile-up mitigation techniques, the intersection of particle physics & machine learning, and more!
I got my doctorate from the University of Chicago. See my curriculum vitae for more information.
Advisor: David W. Miller
Advisors: Kenneth Libbrecht and Harvey Newman
Springer Thesis Award
Nathan Sugarman Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Resarch
US ATLAS Outstanding Graduate Student Award
Young Researchers' Symposium Award for Best Poster Presentation
Department of Energy, Office of Science Graduate Student Research
UChicago Excellence in Graduate Teaching nominee
US LHC Users Association Lightning Round Winner
UChicago Excellence in Graduate Teaching nominee
UChicago Excellence in Graduate Teaching nominee
Caltech Excellent TA Award
Edward C. and Alice Stone Fellow
Particle physicist Giordon Stark describes his life as a Deaf physicist working for the ATLAS experiment at CERN.
SCIPPer Giordon Stark was an Instructor at the recent IRIS-HEP analysis preservation hands-on bootcamp.
Deaf scientist Giordon Stark works to ensure the field of physics research is accessible to all.
CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Using highly sophisticated instruments, the organization's physicists and engineers study the fundamental particles that are the building blocks of the universe. How does CERN solve the challenge of finding a tool that can handle thousands of projects and contributors as well as a revolving door of contributors from across the world?
Giordon Stark explains how the LHC experiments at CERN work in ASL (American Sign Language).
TV sets are going out of fashion. Actually, not quite. But that's what it seems like. You could feign a comparison between Online Shopping and Brick & Mortar stores.
It's reminiscent of a Facebook-style newsfeed that changes the way that I look at email.
If a person is born deaf, which language do they think in?
You'll find a lot of things about me and my work if you google my name. This website and my CV may be helpful, as well as my twitter, to give you a sense of my wording/register/patter/sense of humor, etc. I really love puns. Additionally, my thesis website is a great example of how I approach public speaking.
I grew up oral. In one-on-one, I speech-read very well. People will not realize I'm Deaf as I have no noticeable deaf accent, however I am a very quiet speaker. Sometimes you need to let me know if I'm too quiet and need to speak up. For brief interactions, I may be fine alone if the other person isn't too quiet or does not have a strong accent. If it's longer, please interpret. A good rule of thumb is to proactively slide in behind the speaker and begin interpreting.
I will default to speaking for myself in hearing settings always. Voicing for me will only ever be in very informal situations that are not Physics-heavy. I'm usually bad about making (and following) a script for any presentation I do. If you don't feel comfortable voicing for me, even if I want you to, let me know as I will switch to voicing. I don't mind. If there is a D/HoH person around, I might accidentally sim-com, but I try to avoid this. Usually, if there's at least one D/HoH person, I will sign for them and expect you to voice for sign-language impaired people.
I learned ASL relatively late. In fact, I learned it after I started learning PJM. Because I travel internationally a lot for conferences, I will also have picked up many pieces of other sign languages. Regardless of how I sign, I tend to prefer receiving in ASL where possible. If you do not feel comfortable with the subject material/jargon, because this ain't your daddy's physics, signed-english (PSE-like) and more fingerspelling is fine as I'll figure it out from there. Additionally, whenever I sign, I'm a bit lazier and tend not to finish my thoughts on the assumption that whenever I drop a sign, it's implicit what fits in.
Context and shared vocabulary will often not be clear, because they're research discussions! I'm accustomed to academic ASL with mouthing of key vocabulary, and do appreciate seeing the English when interacting in situations where using the same vocabulary as the hearing speakers would be helpful. If you aren't familiar with the jargon, mouth the word and guess at the phonetic spelling, and we'll have a high chance of getting the right word. If I know the word, I'll quickly feed you a sign to replace that word if it comes up often, so you do not need to fingerspell over and over again. Do not assume that's the official sign. Drop it like it's hot afterwards.
During presentations with minimal audience interaction, visual aids, and a single speaker, I'm comfortable following the presentation slides as long as you indicate where the focus is on the slides. Switch back to interpreting when the speaker starts spontaneous expression again or diverges from the slides significantly. I might not always look at you the entire time, but I'm always paying attention. I have photographic memory.
I'm always tired. Don't take offense.
When meetings are informal, please introduce yourself to everyone, because I'll forget. The exception is with people I work with. They're used to seeing me with interpreters by now and usually introductions are not needed.
I often work with hearing people who have never met a Deaf professional before. Please let me know how you feel about educating hearing participants about sign language and interpreting. I know "empowering the Deaf person to explain this stuff themselves" is a thing, but I've also answered that question fifty thousand times before, and delegation is an empowered act (if you're comfortable with it).
I work in a large international collaboration with 3000+ folks. The people in my community have varying levels of fluency in English. Many people will have accents. If you cannot work with accents at all, reconsider taking the job. You also need to let me know so I can make sure you have a strident team. It's not going to be just Spanish or Italian, but also French, Moldovan, Afrikaans, etc...
Are you fluent in signed languages other than ASL? Let me know! I will always want more practice with those during informal situations.
Shared vocabulary/names will be stored in my vocabulary sheet. Request access if you don't have access. Please be sure to add all unfamiliar terms to the spreadsheet after each session.