We study the properties of short-lived atomic nuclei far away from stability, so-called exotic nuclei, using decay spectroscopy and nuclear reaction studies. The properties of exotic nuclei differ significantly from that of known nuclei near stabilty and our work contributes to the development of a unified theory of nuclei and nuclear matter. The only other place such exotic nuclei are also produced in the universe are cataylsmic astrophysical events such as star explosion or mergers of neutron stars. The knowledge of their properties is essential for the understanding of how the chemical elements heavier than iron were produced in the universe. We perform our experiments at the ISAC facility at TRIUMF, which is one of the most powerful facilities for the production of ion beams of exotic nuclei, also called rare ion beams (RIBs). At ISAC we use a suite of modern detector arrays for gamma-ray and charged particle spectrosopy of these exotic nuclei. Complementary experiments are carried out at other RIB facilities, such as RIBF at RIKEN, Japan.

I am also involved in detector development for the next generation detector nEXO, that will search for neutrinoless double beta decay, a possible extremely rare decay mode that migh occur if neutrinos are their own anti-particles (Majorana particles). The discovery of this decay mode would violate lepton number conservation and would allow to determine the absolute neutrino mass.