Cid Vidal, Xabier

I am an experimental particle physicist whose research career started in 2007, when I began working at LHCb. Most of my research has taken place at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) and at CERN, where I have spent around 5 years. During my career I have always been funded by different competitive grants. Relevant examples are the CERN Research or the Ramon y Cajal fellowships, both of which I got after my first application. Currently, I am an Associate Professor at USC and a researcher at the Galician Institute of High Energy Physics (IGFAE).

My contributions to the LHCb physics have covered mainly the areas of Long Lived Particles (LLPs), dark sectors, and flavor physics, but they concern other topics too, such as QCD physics. I played a key role to expand the physics scope of my experiments, for instance, having introduced strange physics in the LHCb physics program. Recently, my career has gone through a major shift. I left LHCb to lead a new CMS group at IGFAE. My main focus remains Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) physics, targeting challenging signatures like LLPs and dark sectors.

Exploring these frontiers requires both data analysis and detector development. In the past, I worked in technical aspects at LHCb, such as trigger, particle identification, simulation, and detector development, like the LHCb Vertex Locator. I am also the Physics Coordinator of the Codex b experiment, a new proposed LLP detector. Moving beyond the proposal stage, my team recently participated in the physical installation and commissioning of the CODEX beta detector demonstrator at CERN. Furthermore, I have established phenomenology collaborations with theoretical physicists to find new areas where BSM searches are well suited for these detectors.

I have also worked in the area of Machine Learning (ML) in the last years. I wrote a book chapter on modern ML applications, published several papers, and became a member of the MODE collaboration. I also apply this knowledge at USC by developing ML course materials. As a Principal Investigator, I have attracted a substantial amount of funding, securing more than 0.7 million euros across several projects. I was also shortlisted in the ERC COG 2024 call. At LHCb, I was the convener of the QEE Working Group from 2016 to 2017 and a member of the Speakers Bureau from 2019 to 2022. Other responsibilities included shift leader, data manager, offline data quality shifter, and internal referee. In terms of service to the scientific community, I have been a convener of the BSM HL LHC Working Group and the DM LHC Working Group. I was also one of the 6 organizing members of the ECFA ECR committee discussing the future of particle physics. I am an external reviewer for 8 journals, including JHEP, and evaluate projects for funding agencies in Peru, Chile, Argentina, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, and Spain. I have organized more than 10 events, such as the Data Science @ LHC workshop in 2015 and parallel sessions of LHCP in 2017, 2021, and 2025.

Regarding supervision, I have been the PhD supervisor of six students who have been postdocs at institutions like MIT and EPFL, and I am currently supervising 6 more PhD students. I have also supervised a Juan de la Cierva fellow, 15 Bachelor Theses, and 10 Master Theses. I have been asked to be a member of 11 PhD thesis committees and have taught around 1000 hours at USC since 2010. In terms of publications, I am the author of more than 800 papers, out of which 42 are not from the LHCb collaboration. I have been directly involved in more than 20 LHCb published analyses, being a contact author of 13 of them, making me one of the 20 most prolific authors in a collaboration of over 1000 members. I have given more than 25 presentations in international conferences outside of LHCb, and more than 400 talks at internal meetings. Finally, I am very active in outreach, having given talks in High Schools, worked on a web page for dissemination, and published more than 15 articles in physics education journals.