Women and minorities
invited to meet with APS

At the invitation of Fermilab Director Pier Oddone, members of the American Physical Society will arrive at Fermilab Tuesday to listen to what those at the laboratory think about the employment climate for women and minorities.

APS representatives will meet with groups of senior scientists, engineers, computer professionals, postdocs, graduate students and Fermilab management.

Fermilab would like to see a wide variety and large number of participants in the APS meetings Tuesday and Wednesday, said Dianne Engram, of Workforce Development’s Equal Opportunity and Counseling division.

APS conducts such on site interviews at the request of university physics departments and laboratories. The APS shares its findings with the managers of these institutions, who use them to make improvements, if needed.

Before coming to Fermilab, APS conducted a survey of Fermilab workers, but the laboratory has not seen those survey results yet.

Fermilab’s involvement in the process began in February 2007 when an in-house committee on recruitment and retention for scientific staff suggested an APS visit. The committee wanted to get the opinions of those working at the laboratory on what they liked and what needed improvement.

Previous employee climate studies had focused on permanent, full-time employees. This study will take into account opinions from full- and part-time employees as well as graduate students and postdocs about the employment climate for women and minorities.

APS has held similar site visits and surveys at other national laboratories and at university physics departments. To learn more about the visits see the APS Web site.

Employees, students and postdocs may sign up to attend more than a dozen discussion meetings. Employees also may sign up to meet individually with the site team. View the meeting schedule here.

Space is limited, to facilitate discussion. Meeting slots will be filled in the order requests are received. To register, contact Dianne Engram at engram@fnal.gov with your name, position and which meeting you want to attend.

-- Tona Kunz

Editor's Note: Many Chinese scientists work on experiments at Fermilab, and the laboratory has a history of strong relationships with institutions in China. In these difficult days, our hearts go out to our colleagues and their families both in China and working abroad. We received the following letters from people working here at Fermilab. Also provided are a sampling of organizations accepting donations to help with relief efforts. See Associated Press photos and details of the earthquake's aftermath here.

Click image for larger view

Dear Fermilab Today Readers,

On May 12, a tragic 7.9-magnitude earthquake hit western China, followed on May 16 by a 5.5-magnitude aftershock. Tens of thousands of people were buried under the rubbles. The death toll already exceeds 20,000. Many more are estimated to be dead - between 50,000 and 100,000. Cities were completely destroyed.

I come from the eastern part of China. My hometown felt the quake, but it was not destroyed. Still, seeing the photos that showed corpses of hundreds of high school students from a single school made my heart and the heart of fellow Chinese students bleed.

I am a graduate student from Stony Brook University in New York who has been working on DZero for several years. Other Chinese students also work at DZero, CDF or MINOS.

I and some other Chinese students are making donations. However, during this extremely difficult time for Chinese people, more help is needed. Some of our American friends back in school asked how they could help and donate. We thought our colleagues at Fermilab might also want to help out. As little as a $5 donation can buy a blanket that will help a homeless person fight off a cold night.

Thanks a lot for your kind help.

Jun Guo

Dear Fermilab Today Readers:

The Chinese Association here at Fermilab asks its colleagues to offer support to the Sichuan earthquake victims in China. The need is great.

• 80 percent of the buildings were toppled in one county.
• Thousands of people were buried in the rubble of collapsed buildings.
• The Chinese government estimates 4.9 million houses were destroyed.
• More than 60,000 people are missing or out of reach.

We need your help! Please donate whatever you can afford.

Meiqin Xiao

These not-for-profit organizations accept donations and provide help to the earthquake victims in China. Some organizations match donations and offer tax-deductable receipts.

American Red Cross

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

Canadian Red Cross

Mercy Corps

CERN demos giant 3D digital camera

From ZDNet, May 15, 2008

At the JavaOne conference in San Francisco, Derek Mathieson, project leader for the world's largest particle physics laboratory, CERN, shows off the Atlas detector, a six story high, 100-megapixel camera with 100 million data channels. Mathieson explains how the detector uses open-source Java applications to collect data and how grid computing allows the data to be processed.

(The nearly seven-minute video about Atlas is preceded by a short commercial.)

Read more

Biking to work nothing new at Fermi

From Daily Herald, May 16, 2008

Today is National Bike to Work Day. Every day is bike to work day for somebody at Fermilab.

About 125 workers have a bike commuter club going. They keep track of their rides and mileage on a Web site started in 2004 "just to see who else was riding every day," said 34-year-old Jamieson Olsen of Batavia.

Some ride every day. Some ride only a few times a year.

Read more