All-hands meeting at 11 a.m. today in Ramsey Auditorium

Fermilab Director Pier Oddone will speak about the laboratory's plans at an All-hands meeting at 11 a.m. in Ramsey Auditorium today. Overflow seating will be available in One West. All employees should plan to attend.

Greg Bock appointed associate director for research

Greg Bock

Fermilab Director Pier Oddone today announced the appointment of Particle Physics Division Head Greg Bock to be Fermilab's associate director for research, with responsibility for PPD, the Particle Astrophysics Center and the CMS Center. Bock has worked at Fermilab for 26 years. He was a Fermilab user for eight years before that.

"I like it here," Bock said.

Oddone expressed his excitement at Bock's appointment.

"Greg has great scientific judgment," Oddone said. "He is an excellent physicist and an outstanding manager. His success at managing large projects has earned the respect not only of his colleagues at Fermilab but across the field. His research interest in the intensity frontier will be an asset in shaping and implementing our future. Greg's legendary calm amid the storm and his unfailing sense of humor will serve us well."

Thomas Jefferson Laboratory Director Hugh Montgomery, who held the position of associate director for research at Fermilab until April 2008, agreed.

"Greg is an excellent choice," Montgomery said. "Of all the people at Fermilab, no one has a stronger record of managing through difficult times. His two-feet-on-the-ground management approach gives people confidence. When he takes a decision, people trust it."

Reflecting on his career at Fermilab, Bock said "It's all been fun. Managing projects is hard, but you can concentrate on achieving just one thing. As PPD head, I don't have that focus, but I get a look at the breadth of what's going on here and a grasp of what our unbelievable staff are accomplishing."

Bock looks forward to his role as research director at a defining moment for Fermilab, as the Tevatron continues to set records while confronting the end of its run at the energy frontier, and the laboratory looks toward a future on new frontiers of particle physics.

"I am eager to increase our efforts at the intensity frontier as part of a balanced program with particle astrophysics and energy-frontier physics," Bock said. "All of this science is very, very interesting and important for the future of our laboratory and our field. At Fermilab, we have many things to do all at once. The challenge is to make it all work."

-- Judy Jackson

LHC on NPR's Science Friday today at 2 p.m.

This week's Science Friday will feature theoretical physicist Lisa Randall, who will discuss space, time, hidden dimensions and the Large Hadron Collider. Her interview will be broadcast in the show's second hour, beginning at 2 p.m. CDT.

Visit the Science Friday Web site.

NASA's Fermi Mission, namibia's HESS telescopes explore a blazar

From NASA News Release, March 19, 2009

Editor's Note: A Fermilab team helped to manufacture a key component of the Fermi gamma-ray telescope called the Large Area Telescope. The project name was changed from Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) to its current name when it launched on June 11, 2008.

An international team of astrophysicists using telescopes on the ground and in space have uncovered surprising changes in radiation emitted by an active galaxy. The picture that emerges from these first-ever simultaneous observations with optical, X-ray and new-generation gamma-ray telescopes is much more complex than scientists expected and challenges current theories of how the radiation is generated.

Read more