Faculty

Dr. Wasikul Islam

Assistant Professor


Research Area

Experimental Particle Physics, Physics at the Large Hadron Collider with ATLAS/CERN Experiment

Office: 6/139
Tel: 966-13-860-2860
Email: wasikul.islam@kfupm.edu.sa

Affiliated Center

Interdisciplinary Research Center for Industrial Nuclear Energy

Research Interests

My research aims to uncover new physics with the ATLAS Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN Laboratory (Switzerland) and at future particle physics experiments by developing cutting-edge techniques and algorithms for high-energy physics, powered by AI and machine learning. I am particularly interested in model-independent searches for new physics beyond the Standard Model, using novel approaches such as anomaly detection to find signals that traditional searches might miss. I am also interested in exploring physics-informed and quantum machine learning, and developing advanced tracking, vertexing and pileup-mitigation techniques for the High-Luminosity LHC and future particle collider experiments. My passion for particle physics is driven by a profound desire to understand our universe at its most fundamental and smallest scales.

Biographical Sketch

My journey spans: Ph.D. in Physics from Oklahoma State University, USA (2021), Research fellowships and past positions at CERN, Argonne National Lab, Fermilab, SLAC National Accelerator Lab and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Joined KFUPM as Assistant Professor in October, 2026.

My employment/affiliation history is the following:

1. Oct. 2026 - Present, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM), KSA.  
2. Jan 2016 - Present, Physicist, ATLAS Experiment, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Switzerland
3. May 2023 - Oct. 2026,  Research Affiliate, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, USA
4. Nov. 2024 - Oct. 2026,  Scientist I, Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA.  
5. May. 2021 - Oct. 2024,  Research Associate, Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA.
6. Jan. 2019 - April 2021, Graduate Research Assistant, Oklahoma State University, USA
7. Jan 2018 - Dec 2018,  Resident Associate, Argonne National Laboratory, USA.  
8. Nov 2017 - Dec 2018, Visiting Researcher, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, USA
9. Jun 2017 - Aug 2017,  Graduate Research Aide, HEP-Center of Computing Excellence, Argonne National Laboratory, USA
10. Jun 2015 - July 2015, Summer Intern, European Organization for Nuclear Research(CERN), Switzerland


Selected Awards & Honors

1. Co-recipient of the '2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics’ by https://breakthroughprize.org, shared with the members of the ATLAS Collaboration at CERN.
2. Awarded 'Wisconsin Initiative for Scientific Literacy Award 2024’ by University of Wisconsin-Madison USA.
3. Awarded '2023 Postdoc Excellence Award’ by Postdoctoral Association, University of Wisconsin-Madison USA. 
4. Selected 'APS Career Mentoring Fellow 2022’ by American Physical Society, USA.
5. 'ANL-ATLAS Graduate Fellowship’ by Argonne National Lab., USA for a year (2018).
6. 'Summer Research Fellowship' by High Energy Physics Center for Computational Excellence (HEPCCE), Argonne National Lab., USA, Summer 2017.
7. 'INSPIRE-SHE scholarship' by Department of Science & Technology (DST), Govt. of India for 5 years (2010-2015) for securing position among the top 1% students of India.


Publications

I have been the co-author of 699 peer-reviewed research papers. My Google Scholar profile can be found at the following link. My ORCID: 0000-0002-5624-5934. All research papers can also be found at: http://inspirehep.net/author/profile/W.Islam.1.

 
Selected 20 research papers with my significant contributions (& 2 of my books) are listed below : 

1. W. Islam, S.V. Chekanov - “Compact Representation of Particle-Collision Events for Physics-Informed Machine Learning”, 2026,  (arXiv: 2602.17563).
2.   ATLAS Collaboration- "Search for new phenomena in two-body invariant mass distributions using Unsupervised Machine Learning for Anomaly Detection at √𝑠=13  TeV with the ATLAS detector", 2024.(PhysRevLett.132.081801), (arXiv: 2307.01612).
3.  S.V. Chekanov, W. Islam, N. Luongo - "Enhancing Sensitivity for Di-Higgs Boson Searches Using Anomaly Detection and Backpropagation Machine Learning", 2025 - (arXiv:2504.12418)
4.  S. Chekanov, W. Islam, R. Zhang, N. Luongo- “ADFilter-a web tool for New Physics Searches with Autoencoder-Based Anomaly Detection Using Deep Unsupervised Neural Networks”, 2024 (Information2025, 16(4), 258), (arXiv:2409.03065)
5.  W. Islam, - “WIPUNet: A Physics-inspired Network with Weighted Inductive Biases for Image Denoising”, 2024 (arXiv:2509.05662).
6.  ATLAS Collaboration- “Search for new phenomena in multi-body invariant masses in events with at √s = 13 TeV proton-proton collision data collected by the ATLAS detector, 2022 (JHEP07(2023)202), (arXiv:2211.08945).
7.  ATLAS Collaboration- "Search for vector-boson resonances decaying into a top quark and a bottom quark using pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector", 2023 (JHEP12(2023)073),(arXiv: 2308.08521). 
8.  ATLAS Collaboration. “Search for dijet resonances in events with an isolated charged lepton using √s=13 TeV proton-proton collision data collected by the ATLAS detector”, 2020,  (JHEP 06 (2020) 151) (arxiv: 2002.11325) .
9.  S.V. Chekanov, S. Darmora, W. Islam, C.E.M. Wagner, J. Zhang- "Model-independent searches for new physics in multi-body invariant masses", 2021 (Universe 2021, 7(9), 333), (arXiv:2103.10217).
10. ATLAS Collaboration- "Search for vector boson resonances decaying to a top quark and a bottom quark in hadronic final states using pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector", 2021 (ATLAS-CONF-2021-043).
11.  M. Rominsky et al. - Fermilab Test Beam Facility Annual Report: FY18 (Fermilab technical publication: FERMILAB-TM-2702-DI). 
12.  M. Rominsky et al. - Fermilab Test Beam Facility Annual Report: FY19 (Fermilab technical publication: FERMILAB-TM-2734-DI), (doi:10.2172/1668714).
13.  Tulika Bose et al.- “Report of the Topical Group on Physics Beyond the Standard Model at Energy Frontier for Snowmass 2021”, 2022 (arXiv:2209.13128).
14.   F. Maltoni et al.- “Theory of Collider Phenomena”, TF07 Snowmass Report, 2022 (arXiv:2210.02591).
15.   W.Islam- "Searches for Dijet Resonances with ATLAS Detector” (ATL-PHYS-PROC-2025-120).              
16.   W. Islam, S.V. Chekanov, N. Luongo- "New Physics Searches at the LHC through Event-based Anomaly Detection and Development of ADFilter Web-tool", 2025 (arXiv:2511.21869).
17.   W. Islam- "Searches for new physics with leptons using the ATLAS detector", 2024, PoS(PIC2024)011, Proceedings of Science, ATL-PHYS-PROC-2024-120.
18.   ATLAS Collaboration- "Search for new phenomena in two-body invariant mass distributions using unsupervised machine learning for anomaly detection at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector", 2023 (ATLAS-CONF-2023-022).[Presented in LHCP-2023 conference]
19.   ATLAS Collaboration- "Search for new phenomena in multi-body invariant masses in events with at least one isolated lepton and two jets using ATLAS detector", 2022 (ATLAS-CONF-2022-048).[Presented in ICHEP-2022 conference] at √s = 13 TeV. 
20.   W. Islam- “Increasing Multilingualism in ATLAS’ Science Communication", 2022.Published in Proceedings of Science: (ICHEP2022)973.

Books : 

1. Co-Editor for a book ’Tai Tsun Wu - Memorial Volume’ by World Scientific Publishing, Singapore, 2025 (ISBN :978-981-98-2190-7).
2. Authored and published a poetry book in Bangla language: “Nakkhatra Punja Sakkhi” (“Stars are the witness”) by Manan Publication, Kolkata, India, 2023 (ISBN : 978-93-91027-20-9). 

Dr. Wasikul Islam Assistant Professor 6/139 +966 13 86 2860 wasikul.islam@kfupm.edu.sa