Kimberly Palladino was one of sixteen professors across UW to receive this year’s Vilas Faculty Early Career Investigator Award, recognizing research and teaching excellence in faculty who are relatively early in their careers.
Palladino works in the field of direct dark matter searches with the two-phase liquid xenon TPCs LUX and LZ. Her group focuses on detector performance including high voltage and xenon handling. These detectors are generally looking for WIMP (weakly interacting massive particles) dark matter candidates via nuclear recoils. Neutron induced nuclear recoils are studied for backgrounds and calibration. Palladino is also involved in detector R&D for nuclear recoil detection.