Physicist · Neutrino astronomy & detector instrumentation

Portrait of Annabelle Grimes

Annabelle Grimes

Welcome to my personal website!

I'm a PhD candidate at Simon Fraser University, building and calibrating instruments for the Pacific Ocean Neutrino Experiment (P‑ONE), a cubic-kilometre neutrino telescope taking shape in the deep Pacific off British Columbia. This is where I gather, summarize and share my work.

Current research Publications CV LinkedIn

Detector strings sway in the current. Click anywhere to send an acoustic ping.

About

Instrumentation for a telescope at the bottom of the sea

Neutrino telescopes catch the faint flashes of Cherenkov light that follow a rare neutrino interaction. P-ONE hangs its optical modules along flexible lines anchored more than 2.5 km deep in the Cascadia Basin. Ocean currents keep moving those lines, so the telescope has to keep track of exactly where every sensor is. My PhD research, co-supervised by Dr. Darren Grant and Dr. Matthias Danninger, is about that problem: acoustic positioning and detector-geometry reconstruction. I also work on integration, calibration and testing for P-ONE-1, the experiment's first detector line.

I studied Integrated Engineering at UBC, then moved into physics. Through the UBC Science Co-op program, I held two positions at TRIUMF that covered both sides of nuclear physics. On the experimental side, I built scintillator detector hardware for the GRIFFIN spectrometer. On the theory side, I computed nuclear matrix elements for neutrinoless double-beta decay with the in-medium similarity renormalization group. As an experimentalist with an engineering background, I found the theory work a little outside my comfort zone.

Before that, the UBC Engineering Co-op program took me to Laser Zentrum Hannover in Germany, where I applied machine learning to laser additive manufacturing.

In the news The Globe and Mail · Science Physicists want to catch neutrinos in the sea. Step 1: Make sure their machinery won’t drown Ivan Semeniuk · August 15, 2026 “I like the idea of building a telescope to do physics,” said Annabelle Grimes, a graduate student at Simon Fraser… Read the article →
Out of a whole interview about deep-sea engineering, they picked the line where I sound like an excited kid at a science fair. Fair enough. It's still true.

Research & projects

What I'm working on

Current

Illustration: three seafloor acoustic pingers ranging to one optical module on swaying detector lines
Current · PhD thesisSFU · P-ONE

Acoustic position reconstruction for P-ONE

The detector lines move with the ocean, and P-ONE can only reconstruct neutrino directions if it knows where every module is. I'm developing methods that combine acoustic ranging between seafloor pingers and receivers in the modules to rebuild the detector's geometry continuously, working toward a reconstruction framework for the whole detector.

More detail

This builds on the prototype system described in our 2025 JINST paper: piezo-acoustic receivers inside P-ONE pressure housings and autonomous pingers on the seafloor. In a test at sea, it measured relative ranging times with about 230 to 280 µs accuracy at distances up to 1.6 km. I presented this work at the International School of Cosmic Ray Astrophysics in Erice, Italy (2026).

  • Acoustics
  • Geometry reconstruction
  • Python
Illustration: one module on a detector line emits a light flash; neighbouring modules record the pulse, and their arrival times are compared
CurrentSFU · P-ONE

P-ONE-1: integration, calibration & QA

P-ONE-1 is the first full detector line for P-ONE. I work on integrating, testing and calibrating its subsystems, and on quality assurance as the line is prepared for deployment.

More detail

This work feeds into a collaboration paper in preparation on P-ONE's optical calibration systems, and builds on what the STRAW pathfinders showed about long-term biofouling and sedimentation at the site.

  • Instrumentation
  • Calibration
  • Commissioning

Science communication

Interactive2026

Neutrino telescopes of the world

An interactive globe of the world's neutrino telescopes, and a sky explorer showing which part of the sky each one sees best at different energies.

Explore it Source
Science communication2026

Anatomy of an Astrophysical Neutrino

An interactive, scroll-driven visualization that follows a single astrophysical neutrino from a black hole to a deep-sea telescope, for anyone curious about how neutrino astronomy works.

View it Source
Web2026

SFU High Energy Physics group website

A website for SFU's ATLAS, P-ONE and computing groups, written in plain HTML and CSS so that future group members can take it over and keep it up to date.

View it Source

Previous work

Illustration: a gamma-ray energy spectrum, with a coincidence-gated spectrum highlighted, and a scintillator paddle with photomultiplier
2023 to 2024TRIUMF · Science Co-op

Ancillary scintillator array for GRIFFIN

Developed scintillator and photomultiplier detector hardware for tagging decay coincidences in the GRIFFIN gamma-ray spectrometer with Dr. Adam Garnsworthy, and took experimental shifts on radioactive-ion-beam experiments. I presented this as a poster at the 2024 CAP Congress.

  • Scintillators
  • PMTs
  • Nuclear structure
Illustration: a Hamiltonian matrix flowing from dense to decoupled form under the similarity renormalization group
2023TRIUMF Theory · Science Co-op

Nuclear matrix elements for 0νββ decay

Used in-medium similarity renormalization group (IMSRG) calculations with Dr. Jason Holt to study nuclear matrix elements relevant to neutrinoless double-beta decay, which links nuclear structure theory to neutrino physics.

  • IMSRG
  • Ab initio theory
Illustration: a laser depositing layers on a part, with a neural network feeding back to the laser head
2019LZH · Engineering Co-op

Machine learning for laser additive manufacturing

Applied machine learning to process control in laser additive manufacturing, as part of data-driven modelling for repairing single-crystal superalloy turbine blades.

  • Machine learning
  • TensorFlow

Publications

Papers

These are collaboration papers, and authors are listed alphabetically or by collaboration convention.

  1. In prep.

    Optical calibration systems of the Pacific Ocean Neutrino Experiment

    M. Agostini et al. (P-ONE Collaboration)

    Manuscript in preparation for JINST

  2. 2026

    Collectivity of the deformed structure in 96Zr from complementary Coulomb-excitation and β-decay measurements

    M. Zielińska et al. · 59 authors

    Physics Letters B 877, 140481 (2026)

    DOI INSPIRE
  3. 2026

    Long term study of sedimentation and biofouling at Cascadia Basin, the site of the Pacific Ocean Neutrino Experiment

    O. Aghaei et al. · 93 authors

    European Physical Journal C 86, 172 (2026)

    DOI arXiv INSPIRE
  4. 2025

    Prototype acoustic positioning system for the Pacific Ocean Neutrino Experiment

    M. Agostini et al. (P-ONE Collaboration) · 80 authors

    Journal of Instrumentation 20, P07003 (2025) Closest to my thesis

    DOI arXiv INSPIRE
  5. 2025

    First measurement of a weak r-process reaction on a radioactive nucleus

    M. Williams et al. · 48 authors

    Physical Review Letters 134, 112701 (2025)

    DOI INSPIRE
  6. 2025

    Coulomb excitation of 80Sr and the limits of the N ≈ Z ≈ 40 island of deformation

    R. Russell et al. · 36 authors

    Physical Review C 112, 014309 (2025)

    DOI arXiv INSPIRE

Presentations

  • 2026
    Development of acoustic position reconstruction methods for the Pacific Ocean Neutrino Experiment Poster · International School of Cosmic Ray Astrophysics, Erice, Italy
  • 2024
    Development of an ancillary scintillator detector array for coincidence tagging in GRIFFIN Poster · Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) Congress, London, Ontario

In the media

Curriculum vitae

CV

Research experience

  1. Sep 2024 – present

    Graduate Researcher, Pacific Ocean Neutrino Experiment (P-ONE)

    Simon Fraser University · Co-supervisors: Dr. Darren Grant & Dr. Matthias Danninger

    • Instrumentation, integration, testing and calibration of detector subsystems for a km³-scale deep-sea neutrino observatory.
    • Developing acoustic positioning and detector-geometry reconstruction methods for a dynamic marine environment.
    • Detector commissioning, quality assurance, and deployment preparation for P-ONE-1.
  2. Sep 2023 – Sep 2024

    Research Co-op, GRIFFIN Collaboration

    TRIUMF · UBC Science Co-op · Supervisor: Dr. Adam Garnsworthy

    • Developed ancillary scintillator and photomultiplier detector systems for coincidence tagging.
    • Detector operation, experimental shifts and data collection with radioactive ion beams.
    • Supported nuclear structure and reaction studies.
  3. May – Sep 2023

    Research Co-op, Theory Group

    TRIUMF · UBC Science Co-op · Supervisor: Dr. Jason Holt

    • IMSRG calculations of nuclear matrix elements relevant to neutrinoless double-beta decay.
  4. May – Sep 2019

    Machine Learning Research Co-op

    Laser Zentrum Hannover, Germany · UBC Engineering Co-op

    • Machine learning for process control in laser additive manufacturing and single-crystal turbine-blade repair.

Contact

Get in touch

I'm always happy to talk about neutrino telescopes, detector instrumentation, or opportunities to collaborate.

LinkedInin/annabelle-grimes SFU PhysicsDepartment profile GitHubannabellegrimes