Clarke A. Hardy

About Me

I am a postdoctoral researcher in physics at Yale, where I work on searches for sterile neutrinos using levitated nanoparticles. This project lies at the intersection of neutrino physics and levitated optomechanics, the two main topics of my PhD research.

During my PhD at Stanford, I worked on nEXO, a planned tonne-scale experiment to search for neutrinoless double beta decay, and on a search for new interactions at the micron scale using optically levitated microspheres. My work consisted of data analysis, software development, detector R&D, and lab management.

Beyond research, I am passionate about teaching math and physics. I have served as volunteer faculty at Mount Tamalpais College, which offers degree programs to the incarcerated population at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center. There, I have taught precalculus and physics, and worked as a substitute instructor and tutor for other math courses.

Education

• Stanford University
  • PhD in Physics, 2025
• Queen’s University
  • MSc in Physics, 2019
  • BASc in Engineering, 2018

Research Interests

• Neutrinos: origin of the neutrino mass, sterile neutrinos
• New interactions: micron-scale force search using levitated microspheres
• Dark matter: direct detection, WIMP dark matter, leptophilic dark matter
• Statistics & ML: advanced statistical techniques for use in fundamental physics
• Data visualization: creation of high-quality graphics for presenting complex physics data

News

• [May 2026] A recent paper from my group has been covered by New Scientist.
• [Aug. 2025] My PhD thesis has now been published online. You can download it here or view it on the Stanford Digital Repository.
• [Apr. 2025] I recently gave a talk at Yale for the NPA Seminar. Watch it here
• [Apr. 2025] I successfully defended my PhD thesis! My talk was entitled “In Search of Majorana Neutrinos and Micron-Scale Interactions”

Selected Publications