Higgs@10 - Alumni Memories with Octavio Dominguez

CERN Alumni: Octavio Dominguez

Today: Maths teacher in a secondary school in Edinburgh.

What memories do you have from the 4 July 2012 announcement of the discovery of the Higgs boson? 

"I remember I arrived early on the 4th of July 2012, planning to do some efficient work before THE annoucement. My intention was to be there in the Main Auditorium, of course. But I guess being Spanish makes me think everyone would play by ear on the day, and did not consider that SO many people had slept in the corridors of the main building queuing!!!! As you can imagine, I realised I would not be sitting next to Mr. Higgs and company for the big event and had to watch it live in the Auditorium of Building 9 with my colleagues from the ABP group. Although way less glamorous, it was still great! We all cheered when Fabiola Gianotti annouced the 5 sigma. And then CMS! (although if I remember well, I think they had 4.9 sigma and were a little jealous!). There was a genuine atmospehere of celebration. And then the camera fosused on Peter Higgs, who was drying his tears with a hankerchief. It was a really beautiful moment. And to experience a bit more glamour, me and some colleagues went to have lunch to R1 (we normally would go to R2) and managed to see Peter Higgs and Francois Englert, who seemed pretty busy so we didn't disturb them any more. But it was great. Who would have told me that about 10 years later I would see Mr. Higgs again walking in the streets of Edinburgh (where I currently live)?! "

What is your best memory of working at CERN? 

"Wow! What a difficult question to answer... There are so many nice memories! I think I will stick to the feeling towards the end of my time at CERN, having overcome the "impostor syndrome" that almost every PhD student feels, and realising the expertise I had acquired, and how many senior colleagues whom I had always highly respected started asking for my opinion, advice and collaboration on their projects. It was a really sweet moment of my research career. "

What skills did you develop during your CERN work experience which have been particularly useful in your subsequent career trajectory? 

"Team work, resilience, communication skills, IT skills, research methods, learning in different ways, becoming a critical and reflective practitioner, science knowledge, outreach experience (as a CERN volunteer to show around visitors), teaching skills (as a tutor in the EPFL Accelrators MSc), ..."