Kétévi Adiklè Assamagan is an African American physicist at the

Brookhaven National Laboratory Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base and Japanese internment c ...

. He was elected a Fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

in 2021. Assamagan founded the African School of Physics.

Early life and education

Assamagan was born in Port-Gentil

Gabon Gabon (; ; snq, Ngabu), officially the Gabonese Republic (french: République gabonaise), is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, it is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north ...

, and moved to

Togo Togo (), officially the Togolese Republic (french: République togolaise), is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its c ...

at the age of 4. He was an undergraduate student at the

University of Lomé The University of Lomé (french: Université de Lomé; abbreviated UL) is the largest university in Togo. Located in the city of Lomé, it was founded in 1970 as University of Benin (french: Université du Bénin) and changed its name to the Unive ...

. After earning his bachelor's degree in Physics and Chemistry he was awarded a scholarship from the African-American Institute to study in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, where he joined the

Southern Illinois University Southern Illinois University is a system of public universities in the southern region of the U.S. state of Illinois. Its headquarters is in Carbondale, Illinois. Board of trustees The university is governed by the nine member SIU Board of Tr ...

. He eventually started a graduate studies at

Ball State University Ball State University (Ball State, State or BSU) is a public university, public research university in Muncie, Indiana. It has two satellite facilities in Fishers, Indiana, Fishers and Indianapolis. On July 25, 1917, the Ball brothers, indust ...

. His Master's research involved the development of a two-dimensional analytical model of a solar concentrator. After earning his master's degree, he moved to the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...

, where he worked toward a doctorate in particle physics. During his doctorate he worked at the

Paul Scherrer Institute The Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) is a multi-disciplinary research institute for natural and engineering sciences in Switzerland. It is located in the Canton of Aargau in the municipalities Villigen and Würenlingen on either side of the River A ...

Research and career

Assamagan was appointed to

Hampton University Hampton University is a private, historically black, research university in Hampton, Virginia. Founded in 1868 as Hampton Agricultural and Industrial School, it was established by Black and White leaders of the American Missionary Association af ...

where he worked on the

Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), commonly called Jefferson Lab or JLab, is a US National Laboratory located in Newport News, Virginia. Its stated mission is "to provide forefront scientific facilities, opportunities an ...

. He eventually moved to the

ATLAS experiment ATLAS is the largest general-purpose particle detector experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a particle accelerator at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Switzerland. The experiment is designed to take advantage ...

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...

. His research considers physics beyond the

Standard Model The Standard Model of particle physics is the theory describing three of the four known fundamental forces (electromagnetism, electromagnetic, weak interaction, weak and strong interactions - excluding gravity) in the universe and classifying a ...

. He moved to

in 200, where he worked on the physics analysis tools for

ATLAS An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographic ...

. He was made coordinator for the software of the Muon Spectrometer. He was part of the ATLAS Collaboration when they first observed the

Higgs boson The Higgs boson, sometimes called the Higgs particle, is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics produced by the quantum excitation of the Higgs field, one of the fields in particle physics theory. In the Stand ...

in 2012. Assamagan is co-founder of the African School of Physics, a non-profit school training African researchers in fundamental physics and applications. In 2019, he co-funded with Fairouz Malek, Simon Connel and others, the African Strategy for Fundamental Physics. He was elected to the

African Academy of Sciences The African Academy of Sciences (AAS) is a non-aligned, non-political, not-for-profit, pan-African learned society formed in 1985. The AAS elects fellows ( FAAS) and affiliates. The AAS also awards the Obasanjo Prize for Scientific Discovery and ...

in 2019 and the

in 2021.

Selected publications

* * * *

Personal life

Assamagan plays African drums.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Assamagan, Ketevi 1963 births African-American engineers 21st-century African-American academics 21st-century American academics Fellows of the American Physical Society 20th-century African-American academics 20th-century American academics Living people University of Lomé alumni African-American physicists Southern Illinois University alumni 20th-century American physicists 21st-century American physicists People associated with CERN