Leonie Einfalt

I have worked in experiments that have been running for 30 years, and also one that was at a similar stage to SABRE South, so I hope that both of those experiments help me here.

A magazine article first piqued Leonie Einfalt’s interest in dark matter.

As a secondary student in Austria, the article inspired her to write her final project on the mysterious substance.

Fast forward more than a decade and Dr Einfalt is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Melbourne working on the SABRE South dark matter experiment.

Dr Einfalt was born in the small town of Altenmakt im Pongau in Austria’s Alps, where most of the population – including both her parents – worked in tourism.

“I was always good at maths but I found that it was a bit boring on its own; it was more interesting in combination with physics.”

She attended university in Vienna, studying Theory and Mathematical Physics, before settling on Particle Physics and direct detection.

“I completed a masters in dark matter phenomenology, but I found it hard that I couldn’t really see a physical output. I rather do research where you can see the result at the end, and before that, something I can work on with my hands.”

Dr Einfalt went on to join the CRESST collaboration at the Technical University of Vienna, a 30-year-old cryogenic experiment, and its spin-off, the newer COSINUS experiment.

“We developed new techniques to use sodium iodide crystals as a cryogenic detector, which had not been done before,” she said.

Her appointment with the Dark Matter Centre is not her first time in Australia – she also enjoyed an exchange semester at the University of Melbourne in 2018.

On a second visit, Dr Einfalt combined travel with working at Mount Buller, where she indulged her interest in skiing and snowboarding she developed in her alpine birthplace.

In her role in Melbourne, she is working on software development and analysis, as well as the crystal module assembly bringing the skills she developed in Vienna to the SABRE South collaboration.

“I have worked in experiments that have been running for 30 years, and also one that was at a similar stage to SABRE South, so I hope that both of those experiments help me here.”

Dr Einfalt said she was excited to be part of an experiment that had generated curiosity around the globe, and sparked her interest from Vienna.

“SABRE South is well-known in the NaI-DM community and its results will be of high importance to the field -- whatever comes out of it, I am confident we’ll learn something new.”  she said.