Mike Kordosky

Statement:

The primary mission of the UEC is to engage with the Laboratory, advising 
it's management of the User's priorities and maintaining open channels of 
communication with the User community. I think it is clear that the ongoing 
Tevatron exploitation, the start of LHC operations and the staged neutrino 
program offer exciting opportunities in the short and medium terms. Under 
the scenario that the long term goal of the laboratory is to host the ILC 
the UEC has a role in advocating for laboratory support not only for ILC but 
also for User initiated medium-sized experiments to be carried out in the 
interim. Such experiments would have a shorter life-cycle but offer diverse 
opportunities for training new students, maintaining the accelerator program 
and helping to retain existing User presence at the lab or indeed attracting 
Users back from the LHC.

Fermilab will soon be the sole high energy physics laboratory in the US. As 
a consequence, I believe that the UEC now has a greater responsibility for 
improving and expanding our relationship with the public and by extension 
their representatives in government. We are lucky because we have a good 
product to sell!  My experience explaining our field to lay people, although 
anecdotal, suggests that the public is genuinely interested in what we do 
and appreciative of why we do it. I am impressed with the lab's educational 
outreach program and it's relationship with the surrounding community. I am 
interested in exploring ways in which we can expand this effort to reach a 
larger number of people. This couples naturally to the ongoing effort by the 
UEC to work with the APS and other organizations in engaging lawmakers. I 
think that the annual DC trip is really vital but would like to expand an 
additional scheme in which Users are encouraged to make regular contact with 
their representatives "in district". The responsibility of the UEC, along 
with the Office of Public Affairs, would be in helping to prepare Users for 
this role.

I am currently employed at an institution outside the US but will be 
returning to take a new position later this year. I believe that this gives 
me a useful perspective on some of the issues faced by international Users.  
Attracting international scientists is not only in line with the stated 
national priorities but also, I think, vital if the laboratory seeks to 
host the ILC in the long term. The myriad problems faced by legal aliens 
are well known in our community and have a scope much larger than particle 
physics. It is not clear to me that the UEC and the laboratory have much 
ability to change the situation but we certainly do have an obligation to 
advocate for our international colleagues.