Fermilab Today

The Community Advisory Board, established in the fall of 2009, meets six times a year. Members comment and offer feedback on proposed new projects, offer insight on potential community concerns related to new endeavors, provide guidance on Fermilab's public participation and act as a liaison with local organizations and communities.

The board consists of a rotating group of neighbors from all of the communities surrounding the laboratory. Board members represent many different walks of life and are affiliated with many different local organizations.

Milestone

Adrienne Kolb retires

Adrienne Kolb

After more than 30 years with Fermilab, Adrienne Kolb is retiring from her position as lab archivist and historian. During that time, Kolb has tirelessly documented and promoted Fermilab's history, making the lab's many fascinating stories available to its staff, its users, outside researchers and the public.

"I feel very fortunate that I've had the opportunity to meet so many people who have contributed to Fermilab's history, from members of the farm families to Nobel Prize winners," Kolb said.

Before joining the lab, Kolb earned her B.A. in history from the University of New Orleans and became interested in the history of 20th-century physics when she married Rocky Kolb, who went on to become one of the world's leading astrophysicists. She held positions in the University of Texas Faculty Club, the Caltech Development Office and the Los Alamos County Historical Museum before she and her family came to Fermilab so Rocky could start the Astrophysics Group. On Nov. 14, 1983, Kolb joined the Fermilab History and Archives Project, which was part of the Director's Office at the time. Robert Wilson, the lab's first director, had started the Archives in 1972 and the History Project in 1976.

Kolb initially assisted Lab Archivist and Historian Lillian Hoddeson but later became the lab's sole archivist and historian. Always on the lookout for records and artifacts important to the history of the lab, she greatly expanded the collections and worked with Hoddeson to conduct numerous oral history interviews with lab staff and other prominent people in the field of particle physics. She coordinated the creation of the Archives House in the Fermilab Village at 18 Neuqua in 1994, oversaw the transfer of records from the special collections of the canceled Superconducting Super Collider to the Fermilab Archives and chaired the Site History Committee, which began organizing the annual Farmers Picnic in 1998, among many other accomplishments.

Kolb also published numerous articles on the history of Fermilab and the Superconducting Super Collider, including one co-authored with Robert Wilson. In 2008 she, Lillian Hoddeson and Catherine Westfall co-authored the book Fermilab: Physics, the Frontier and Megascience, a history of Fermilab from its conception to the mid-1990s.

"My work at Fermilab has opened my horizons," Kolb said. "When you read through Wilson and Lederman's writings, you want to understand the complicated times they were dealing with. You want to tell that exciting story about the scientific endeavor, about the possibilities of scientific collaboration and exploration."

She has also enjoyed being a part of the Fermilab community, the time she has spent at the lab and its peaceful, prairie land surroundings.

"It's such a relief to me when I get on site because it's a different world — rather tranquil and beautiful, no matter the season," she said.

We invite everyone to join the staff of the Information Resources Department in celebrating Adrienne's contributions to the lab at her retirement party on Thursday, June 25, in the second-floor art gallery from 2-4 p.m.

—Valerie Higgins, lab archivist and historian

In the News

New experiment could make Fermilab leader in physics research — again

From Chicago Tribune, June 19, 2015

The unprecedented launch of a billion-dollar international physics experiment could be exactly what Batavia-based Fermilab needs to ensure the vitality of its future.

The facility lost its formidable status in 2011 to a behemoth 17-mile underground proton accelerator at the Swiss-French border called the Large Hadron Collider, which launched in November 2009. It replaced the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory's 4-mile Tevatron ring, its most alluring attribute.

But Fermilab is on the brink of constructing a facility for a new project, the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, which could help Fermilab regain its title as the world's uncontested leader in particle physics research.

The experiment will be the largest global physics project the United States has hosted to date. It will study the properties of neutrinos, abundant but little-researched particles produced by the sun and other celestial objects.

From the Chief Operating Officer

Collaboration and competition

Tim Meyer

I went to CERN and back in the past week. Not only did I learn that a hulking Swiss-made machine can brew better-tasting coffee faster than me, but I discovered that famed winter-ski maker Rossignol also manufactures stainless-steel bathroom trash cans.

More importantly, I learned that the U.S. particle physics community is succeeding in pressing forward with the seeming conundrum of collaboration and competition that is part and parcel of physics research. With our quest to do for neutrinos what CERN did for the Higgs, Fermilab and the U.S. community are smack-dab in the middle of international relations, with CERN as a clearinghouse for input from the European community.

I was in Geneva to support Nigel Lockyer's status report to CERN Council about the progress in establishing the United States as a host to the world's flagship initiative in neutrino physics. We met with CERN leadership and discussed opportunities and mechanisms to enhance our cooperation via contributions of components and capabilities for the Large Hadron Collider and LBNF. We also mingled with friends and colleagues from the United States, Canada, Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Japan, China and many other countries.

But at the same time as Nigel and I were welcomed to sit in CERN Council chambers as a valuable partner to the future of the LHC, I was asked to review and approve new DOE counterintelligence training that explains the resources DOE makes available to Fermilab staff and the agency's expectations for us to observe and report on suspicious activities.

How do I navigate these seemingly contradictory waters? How do we as a lab reconcile our international commitments with concerns about peace and prosperity?

In straightforward fashion. Our concerns about safety and security do not spring from fears of nationality or culture; they are simply the heightened awareness that is appropriate in areas where crimes might occur. For instance, I lock my car doors and windows when parking my car in Chicago, whereas at Fermilab I often leave my keys in the car with the engine running –-- anyone who steals it probably needs the ride more than I do. (Just kidding!)

To be serious, though, as participants in a DOE-sponsored research program, we must simultaneously trust our neighbors and count on their support while we stay vigilant for activities and intentions that would undermine this spirit of cooperation. And we are not alone in adopting this attitude; my European and Asian colleagues told me last week that they, too, are enhancing their precautions.

I returned to Batavia empowered and more convinced than ever that Europe, through the emblem of CERN, is interested in advancing the global pursuit of the science behind neutrinos. I am also bolstered by the knowledge that we are not hiding from our partners in the name of security, but we are all joining forces to ferret out those who don't support our common objectives of peace and prosperity. And I am filled with pride for the actions of my wife and daughter, who traveled to Vancouver while I was at CERN to affirm their commitment to dual citizenship and a multicultural upbringing.

In Brief

Reminder: DASTOW is Friday

School-age children of Fermilab employees, users and contractors can see physics up close this Friday, when they visit Fermilab for Daughters and Sons to Work (DASTOW) day. View the detailed schedule for the event.

Photo of the Day

Party by fiat

This year's Festa Italiana was a hit, and guests got to pretend they were cruising the Italian coast in a sweet luce blu Fiat. From left: Olivia De la O; Melody Saperston of the Conference Office, who helped organize the party with Cynthia Sazama (not pictured); Fermilab Director Nigel Lockyer; and Festa Italiana organizer Luigi Marchese of the University of Naples. The event was sponsored by the Fermilab Users Organization and the Cultural Association of Italians at Fermilab, with additional support from the laboratory's Italian community. View more Festa Italiana photos by Leonardo Ristori and Margherita Merio, TD. Photo: Leonardo Ristori, TD

In the News

Going all out for neutrino research

From The Hindu, June 17, 2015

Just a few years ago, we witnessed how a national project, the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO), which is to study fundamental particles called neutrinos, was subject to a barrage of questions from environmentalists, politicians and others ever since it was cleared. The project, which involves the construction of an underground laboratory, was initially to be located in the Nilgiris but later, on grounds that it was too close to tiger habitat, was moved to a cavern under a rocky mountain in the Bodi West Hills region of Theni district, about 110 kilometres west of Madurai in Tamil Nadu.

The already much-delayed and important physics project needs to be explained.