It was an honor and a privilege to serve on the PhD defense committee of Lukas Heinrich (NYU), who has had a huge impact on how particle physicists do data analysis. For one, he has designed and built a system that permits re-use of intermediate data results from the ATLAS experiment in new data analyses, measurements, and searches for new physics. For another, he has figured out how to preserve data analyses and workflows in a reproducible framework using containers. For yet another, he has been central in convincing the ATLAS experiment and CERN more generally to adopt standards for the registration and preservation of data analysis components. And if that's not all, he has structured this so that data analyses can be expressed as modular graphs and modified and re-executed.
I'm not worthy! But in addition to all this, Heinrich is a great example of the idea (that I like to say) that principled data analysis lies at the intersection of theory and hardware: His work on ruling out supersymmetric models using ATLAS data requires a mixture of theoretical and engineering skills and knowledge that he has nailed.
The day was a pleasure, and that isn't just the champagne talking. Congratulations Dr. Heinrich!
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