Dr. Azam Zabihi is a researcher (adiunkt) at the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences (CAMK PAN). She joined Astrocent in September 2020 and is currently a member of the Medical Physics and Radiation Detectors Group led by Prof. Masayuki Wada.
She received her PhD in Physics from Bu-Ali Sina University in 2019. Her earlier research focused on Monte Carlo simulations of radiation interactions with biological systems, including Geant4 and Geant4-DNA studies of DNA damage and the relative biological effectiveness of ionizing radiation. She also completed a research fellowship at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil.
At Astrocent, she initiated and leads the development of the 3Dπ total-body PET concept, a novel medical imaging system based on xenon-doped liquid argon scintillation and SiPM readout. This work resulted in a first- and corresponding-author publication in Physics in Medicine & Biology and established a research direction connecting detector technologies developed in astroparticle physics with advanced medical imaging.
She is a member of the DarkSide-20k and ARIA collaborations and works on liquid-argon detector R&D, cryogenic systems, detector instrumentation, slow control, and data analysis. At Astrocent, she leads the development of local cryogenic liquid-argon detector infrastructure, including hardware selection, procurement, assembly, system integration, detector monitoring, and slow-control software.
Her international experimental activities include participation in the assembly, integration, and commissioning of the DarkSide-20k Mockup at LNGS, Italy, and a technical research visit to IHEP, China, focused on cryogenic systems, TPC front-end electronics, SiPM-based readout, signal conditioning, and DAQ integration. She also contributes to detector simulation and data analysis for the ReD (Recoil Directionality) experiment.
She received an NCN MINIATURA 9 grant for the development of cryogenic infrastructure for experimental studies of xenon-doped liquid argon scintillation.
role: Leader
Project title: Preparing Cryogenic Infrastructure for Xenon Doping in LAr-Based Scintillation Studies ("Przygotowanie infrastruktury kriogenicznej do domieszkowania ksenonem w badaniach scintylacyjnych z użyciem ciekłego argonu") Call: Miniatura 9. This project prepares Astrocent’s cryogenic infrastructure to enable precise xenon doping of liquid argon and launch measurements of scintillation light yield and timing in LAr+Xe mixtures using cryogenic SiPMs. The upgrade will expand the cryogenic system and integrate mass-flow control, valves, connectors, and vacuum/pressure sensors to ensure stable, reproducible doping. These studies will support the 3DPi PET system and the X-ArT collaboration, and will equip Astrocent’s dual-phase LAr TPC for key R&D relevant to medical imaging and dark-matter detector development - strengthening this capability locally in Poland.
Granted by National Science Centre