How one boy’s love of physics started with a cat.
Even as a small child, Hector Lacera ’18 wanted to understand the nature of things. He distinctly remembers the first time he felt the inexorable tug of physics. He was seven years old and living in Bogotá, Colombia. One afternoon, while petting the family cat, he felt a shock. “I was infatuated with discovering the reason for the shock,” says Lacera. “I learned about electricity and wanted to know everything I could about the natural world.” That interest led to a fascination with physics, and even as a young boy, Lacera daydreamed about one day doing work at CERN, the world’s largest particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland.
Lacera’s childhood dream is coming true. He is one of only six undergraduate students chosen nationwide to study and conduct research at CERN. He says that when he received the news about the program sponsored by the University of Michigan, “I was over the clouds. This program is really prestigious.”
“It is amazing to have an opportunity to do research with scientists and engineers from around the world.”
Lacera came to the United States when he was 17 and is a first-generation college student. He applied to the University of Florida specifically because of the reputation of its Microkelvin Laboratory, which is the largest ultra-low temperature lab in the world and the only one of its kind in the United States. Lacera has been working on high-energy physics. He plots histograms, analyzes data, and studies the origin of particles. He also is a member of the condensed matter lab where he does computer programming and works on computer layouts that enable university researchers to print specific designs.
Hector Lacera at his UF Physics Lab Robert Landry
While at UF, Lacera has spent his time working as a vote-everywhere ambassador, by calling on “people to engage socially and civically, to go out and vote.” He is also an Honors Program Ambassador. He says that UF has given him the opportunities to grow both socially and scientifically. At CERN, he will take full advantage of his research fellowship.
He says, “It is amazing to have an opportunity to do research with scientists and engineers from around the world. My experiences at UF made this possible by furthering my knowledge of nature, while serving my home, school, and community by being civically engaged.”
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