28 June 2010

Snezana Nektarijevic

Nationality: Serbia


Snezana tunes her tamboura


“Everything is composed of harmony, one just needs to refine their senses to perceive it”, says Snezana Nektarijevic. As with many physicists she was torn between Music and Natural Sciences. Since she could not decide whether to give music or science the priority, Snezana took the musical and the science oriented courses in parallel in her school in Kragujevac. After one year of ‘double load’ she finally made up her mind for the natural sciences. What was the determining reason? “I am simply not a born artist. Artists are persons with a subtle sensibility, which brings them an inspiration to express themselves in their unique artistic way, whereas my approach to music was rather scientific. I loved mathematics in music – formulas of chords, development of harmonies, symmetries and asymmetries of forms.” she says. “I loved to analyze pieces I was playing, so I actually liked to do science in music… But finally, one can also find music in physics and mathematics. They have their own harmony as well.”

Snezana's first instrument was guitar, as her father already played it. Later she added the tamboura, a Balkan stringed instrument, which resembles the Greek bouzouki. “Once you have learnt one instrument it is quite straightforward to handle any similar one”. Through classical guitar education she kept her interest for classical music. But music also provides a special connection to Snezana's origins. “I love classical music, especially impressionism. But Balkan music means something special to me. Although it is not very sophisticated, it carries an emotion that makes me feel at home. In it's colorful melodies and playful rhythms it carries the sorrow and joy at the same time. This symbiosis is a kind of definition of Balkan people's mentality - an enormous joy for life despite all difficulties.”

Snezana recalls her gymnasium with great enthusiasm. “It was the first Gymnasium in Serbia, that was founded in 1833, just briefly after some autonomy from the Turkish conquest was won.”, she proudly explains. The school has a very long and renowned tradition. Beside usual gymnasium classes, the school has also specialized scientific or philological classes for talented students. The specialized mathematical class, in which she was one of seven girls, promoted the talent of the students through participation in diverse competitions and summer school seminars. For those 1-week camps that took place four times per year in the ‘Petnica Researching Station’ one had to apply with curriculum vitae, recommendation letters and application forms. The camps were held by physics, astronomy or mathematics doctoral candidates “in a very scientific manner – totally informal, but extremely dedicated”, as Snezana remembers. She took seminars in astronomy and computer science for three years. It was during these summer schools that Snezana made up her mind to become an astrophysicist. She also showed a large interest for programming, “I was in the team participating in computer science competitions. Every Saturday morning we had classes of preparation for the competition, where we were explaining to each other the fresh solved problems and developed algorithms, similar to the presentations we are doing now at CERN in every day meetings…”

Snezana's father, an electrical engineer, was at first a bit disappointed because he wanted his daughter to follow in his footsteps, but he was supportive of her physics studies in Zurich. Before coming to Zurich she took intensive German classes “with a very strict teacher, who taught not only German language but also the German order”, as she recalls.

When Snezana started her studies at the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland, she was confronted with a completely different way of constructing the lessons. Instead of understanding theory through solving lots of problems, usually together with the other students she had to learn how to work the other way around, and mostly on her own. Snezana also had to cope with a kind of culture shock: “I was used to talk to people about things which excite me or bother me, about my personal impressions or problems, but the way the Swiss students interacted was very impersonal.” That the Swiss students spoke Schwytzerduetsch - Swiss German - outside the courses did not help very much. When Snezana was in the fifth semester, many German students from the Erasmus studentship started, and she felt less a ‘stranger’.

And again the music did help her a lot. A former school friend from Kragujevac studied music at the conservatory and through her she met Serbian musicians and joined a choir. “My choir was kind of my family. There were mainly students and PhD students who happened to study far away from home, in an exciting new country, just like me. They made my students days unforgettable.”

Luckily, Snezana attended Physics I and II, and Introduction to Particle Physics under Prof. Günther Dissertori, an enthusiastic teacher. Although she first wanted to become an astrophysicist, after her first small project at CERN “I fell in love with particle physics.” she remembers. “I was hardly waiting to finish all my exams and come to CERN for my diploma work, to finally make my fingers dirty with real researching business.”

In June 2009, Snezana started her PhD at CERN with the University of Geneva. After completing her Zurich education with a diploma thesis in CMS, the time had come to make another big change. Snezana exchanged Zurich for Geneva, CMS for ATLAS, Swiss-German colleges for completely colorful international environment and German language for English and French. “It sounded like a new challenge. I am very happy to get to know a different detector and other physics topics, but I am also very glad to be surrounded by people from everywhere! We are all foreigners of Switzerland and natives of CERN. People with diverse backgrounds, habits and cultural heritage cannot live in a healthy harmony unless they open themselves towards everybody and learn to accept and appreciate the differences.” She is now involved in the ATLAS SCT Operation and, after finishing her involvement in the Minimum Bias analysis through Low Pt Tracking, she is getting ready to start searching for the t'-quark along with her supervisor Alison Lister. “I'm getting really excited about our new analysis! Through Minimum Bias I have learnt the tools of physics analysis. Now I want to use them for making something myself.”

Since Snezana's arrival, the ATLAS Geneva group has obtained a couple of summer/master students. She was asked to help them coming on board, which did recall her experiences from the summer schools she was attending in the past. “I like transmitting my know how; it's fun! I think, I would like to go into teaching after I collect enough knowledge by doing physics myself.” she says, planning her future. Maybe that way she can transmit one of her major experiences: “To get accustomed to losing solid ground at any moment, to learn to be flexible and open for new experiences.”

Today, Snezana is not torn between music and science any more; on the contrary, she found a way to combine them: “To play good music, one must master one's instrument. In particle physics one has the challenge that the instrument is too huge and complex to handle on one's own, but only through an orchestra - and this is our collaboration.” she resumes. “ATLAS is a huge orchestra whose music can sound nicely harmonic only when all instruments are well tuned and all players well trained. When the smallest piece fails, the whole performance ends up in dissonance or experimentalism,” she smiles.

 

 

 

Birgit Ewert

ATLAS e-News