UCI Physicist Receives Prestigious Fellowship from Los Alamos National Laboratory

Yu-Dai Tsai, UCI postdoctoral scholar in physics & astronomy, has been awarded a Director’s Fellowship at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. While continuing his work at UCI on a part-time basis, Tsai will join other scientists at LANL in pursuit of knowledge related to the “elusive universe” of neutrinos, dark matter and gravity. He has used terrestrial experiments, quantum sensors and space-based resources such as NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample-return mission to facilitate his research. In this new fellowship, Tsai will collaborate with physicists at LANL, UC Davis and Korea University on theoretical and experimental studies into millicharged particles, a suggested type of subatomic unit that holds a charge a fraction of an electron’s. “I am very excited to take on the leadership of our proposed projects at Los Alamos National Laboratory,” said Tsai, an advocate for neurodiversity and invisible disabilities initiatives on campus. “My experience here at UCI has helped me lay the groundwork for further theory- and experiment-based research into the universe’s most vexing unanswered questions.”