After graduating from ETH Zürich, Switzerland with minors in geo– and astrophysics, I turned to neutrino physics and obtained a PhD from Neuchâtel University. In 1997 I received a Young Researcher Grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation to move to Canada and work on the SNO project, then in construction. After a postdoctoral fellowship with Carleton University, Ottawa, I was appointed assistant professor at Laurentian University in 2001. This was a very exciting year with the first SNO results! My contributions to SNO focused on the monitoring of ultralow levels of radoactivity in the water systems. I also led SNO's Low Energy Backgrounds Analysis Group. I have since pushed the sensitivity of the radon detectors used for SNO to support new initiatives with more stringent background requirements.
In 2002 I participated to the CFI proposal and helped establish SNOLAB; my main contribution was the design of the surface building.
I joined the Enriched Xenon Observatory Collaboration (EXO) in 2004. EXO is aiming at an absolute measurement of the neutrino mass scale with the discovery of neutrinoless double-beta decay of 136Xe -- if the transition exists. In June 2012 we published our first results from EXO–200 and had then the best world limit on the effective neutrino mass. With this analysis, we have also essentially ruled out an earlier claim for discovery in 76Ge. My contributions to EXO include the calibration system, radon mitigation and radon production assessments. The collaboration is very active now preparing for nEXO.
Since 2006 I contribute to the direct search for dark matter with PICASSO, then PICO. My interests, like in SNO and EXO are with the understanding and improvement of backgrounds. Since 2007 I am also a collaborator of HALO, a SNOLAB based detector of supernova neutrinos.
An avid caver, I have published frequently in spelunking journals and coordinate the survey of the Motiers Cave near Neuchâtel, Switzerland -- the second longest in the Canton.