University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Assistant Professor Tova Holmes, in the College of Arts and Sciences, has received a Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for her work in high-energy particle physics.
The prestigious fellowships honor exceptional U.S. and Canadian researchers whose creativity, innovation and research accomplishments make them stand out as the next generation of leaders. Holmes is the sixth faculty member from UT to receive the award since its inception in 1955. The Sloan Research Fellowship will provide Holmes with $75,000 to continue her work.
Holmes’ current research centers on searching for new fundamental particles using colliders — machines that force beams of particles to collide at high speeds. These machines are built to address the big questions humanity has about the universe: What makes up dark matter, the material we see evidence of throughout the universe that far outweighs our familiar matter? What did the birth of the universe look like? What might its death look like?
“My work is centered on understanding the universe at its most fundamental level,” Holmes said. “I have been dedicated to searching for new particles my whole career – searching for direct evidence of them and building systems that allow us to make more useful measurements for detecting hidden particles.”
To further those goals, Holmes is a leader in the effort to establish a muon collider in the United States. Muons, she explained, are fundamental particles like electrons, but 200 times heavier. Using muons in a collider could allow researchers to reach higher collision energies than currently possible. Holmes has organized international workshops, built a simulation and supervised a team of students to optimize its performance, and started drafting a constitution to govern the U.S. collaboration of muon collider researchers.
“Dr. Holmes’ work on the muon collider is yet another example of how UT faculty are meeting the grand challenges of our time with innovation and collaboration,” said Deb Crawford, UT’s vice chancellor for research, innovation and economic development. “As part of an international cohort investigating how we can expand high-energy physics frontiers with a relatively small environmental footprint, Dr. Holmes puts UT on the cutting edge of discoveries that could change the way we understand the universe.”
Holmes is no stranger to being honored for her work in her field. She’s already amassed several awards including UT’s first Cottrell Scholar Award (2024); the U.S. Department of Energy’s Early Career Research Award (2022), and research fellowships from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program and the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago.