Hi, I’m Vetri!
I am an incoming (2025-26) fellow with the AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowship program, in the Legislative Branch. I will be placed in the office of a Member of Congress or a Congressional Committee, where I will handle pressing science policy issues.
Before this, I was a postdoctoral researcher and Chamberlain Fellow in the Physics division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. My primary research focus was searching for direct signals of dark matter particles colliding with atomic nuclei. Dark matter makes up 85% of the matter density in our universe—over five times as much as every proton, neutron, and electron combined—but the question remains: what is the nature of the dark matter particle? To answer this, I built and operate some of the world’s most sensitive particle detectors.
I live in Washington, D.C. I grew up in Clifton, New Jersey and attended Rutgers University, New Brunswick for my Bachelor’s. I attended UC Berkeley for my Ph.D.
Check out my website, where I talk more about my professional background, as well as my hobbies and interests!