Joschua Dilly, Dr. rer. nat.

European Organization for Nuclear Research, Geneva, CH

Research in accelerator physics, especially in the measurement and correction of LHC and HL-LHC beam optics.
Simulation and data analysis campaigns.
Software maintenance, development, refactoring and testing of analysis tools and graphical user interfaces in Python and Java.

European Organization for Nuclear Research, Geneva, CH

Thesis Title: “Corrections of high-order nonlinearities in the LHC and High Luminosity LHC beam optics”.
Under the caring supervision of Dr. Rogelio Tomás-García.

European Organization for Nuclear Research, Geneva, CH

Research in accelerator physics, especially in the measurement and correction of beam optics.
Simulation and data analysis campaigns.
Software development of analysis tools and graphical user interfaces in Python and Java.

Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute, Berlin, DE

Development of a Python-based interface between VPI Photonic Components and MATLAB.

Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute, Berlin, DE

Masters Thesis: Quality-of-transmission estimation in physical impairment-aware flexible optical networks.
Digital Signal Processing and Performance Monitoring in Flexible Optical Networks: MATLAB/VPI Photonic Components simulations.
DSP-Toolbox development.

Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung, Berlin, DE

Acoustic wave propagation in waveguides: SB-FEM simulations in MATLAB continued (Acknowledgement).

Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung, Berlin, DE

Acoustic wave propagation in waveguides: SB-FEM simulations in MATLAB.

ABB Switzerland Ltd. (ABB Schweiz AG), Baden Dättwil, CH

Implementation of surface plasma interaction models as boundary conditions for electrical current calculations: FEM Simulation in MATLAB (Reference).

I am currently writing my PhD Thesis “Corrections of high-order nonlinearities in the LHC and High Luminosity LHC beam optics”.

Expertedly supervised by Prof. Dr. Andreas Jankowiak, who made my start at CERN already much easier by providing me with his lecture materials beforehand.

With the background of my bachelor’s studies, the fundamental physics course at the TU-Berlin were the logical choice on the way to obtain a master’s degree. After a short intermezzo as an intern at ABB and BAM to get an insight of a researcher’s life, I did two semesters of lectures at the TU, before working full-time on my thesis at the HHI about “Quality-of-transmission estimation in physical impairment-aware flexible optical networks”.

I chose the studies of computational physics, as the curriculum required to attend the basic courses of the other natural sciences as well, and I did not yet feel finished with biology and chemistry. In addition, all laboratory work was replaced by lectures in simulations and optimization theory, and the fundamental lectures of programming and computer science were mandatory. It was indeed an ideal curriculum to start a career in modern natural sciences, in which the use of computers becomes even more prevalent than laboratories.

Outside of the core curriculum, I enjoyed the philosophic-astronomic-meta-physical lectures of Prof. Roland Buser a lot, and I hope that they are still a thing.

I started with accelerator physics in 2017 at my first Job at CERN. In the Optics Measurements and Correction Team, we are developing new methods to find errors in the LHC beam optics (read: magnetic fields) and are finding new ways to correct them efficiently.

I have a passion for working at the intersection between reality and simulation, enjoying coding much more than setting up experiments and finding new solutions to problems by putting them into algorithms. During my bachelor’s, I was introduced to different methods of optimization and ways to simplify complex object interactions without loosing the important features.

As mentioned above, numerical analysis and mathematical optimization were big parts of my bachelor’s education and the skills taught there have been constant companions ever since and proven to be very useful in the life of a computational physicist.

Most of my coding is done in python, mainly for its simplicity and because speed has been rarely the most important factor in first prototyping calculations. Thanks to the interfaces provided in the language, performance optimization of the code is still possible if necessary. I am very comfortable in it and - in my opinion - know how to write pythonic, readable, well documented code. If there is time. One should also not underestimate the amount of problems solvable by sprinkling some regular expressions here and there.

I am especially versed in pandas for data analysis, numpy and scipy.

The language I learned in university (apart from Fortran, which I will not mention here, so no one contacts me to write some Fortran) and still use sometimes. At CERN, the GUI is written in Java, to which I have made multiple extensions and fixes. I find it very clunky though, and it is not my preferred language.

MATLAB was my main programming language during university as well as during the internships at ABB, BAM and during my master’s at HHI. Only when starting at CERN it was replaced by Python as my go-to programming language.

While I have programmed in C++ for some courses in university, I have not properly used it for many years. I am sure that the knowledge would come back quickly if needed.

The same as for C++ goes for Fortran: While being the original language that I have been taught computational physics in, I have luckily not had to use it for writing in years. I did however stumble during my career into the odd 1000 lines of Fortran legacy code, just waiting to be understood and then rewritten in 10 lines of Python.

If the only available templates are .doc or .ppt for me to use, chances are there will be soon a LaTeX Template for it as well. Happy to share! (The Excel tables are pandas now. See the python section.)

Everyday language. All my devices are in English so my brain does not have to switch (and possibly break).

My native tongue, but sometimes I think my English is better.

A1 on paper, but rarely utilized. Just enough to get buy while shopping. Happy for opportunities to practice more!