I've been an experimental high-energy physicist for 20 years (since I started graduate school in 1988). I got my BS in physics from UCLA, my Ph.D. at Caltech, and did a post-doc at UBC before moving to SLAC. Being an experimentalist means that I got to learn how to use machine tools, to fabricate little parts and jigs with a mill and lathe, and to deal with Real Engineers to design and construct experiments. This was a great learning experience, and I've been putting it to good use ever sin…
