U.S. CMS members appointed to CMS executive team

Fermilab's Ian Fisk (left) will become the CMS computing coordinator. UCSB's Joe Incandela will become a CMS deputy spokesperson.

After a unanimous endorsement from the CMS collaboration board, two additional U.S. CMS scientists will join the senior management of the international experiment at CERN.

Joe Incandela, of the University of California-Santa Barbara and member of Fermilab's CDF experiment, will serve as a deputy spokesperson. Fermilab's Ian Fisk will become computing coordinator. Their two-year terms start on Jan. 1, 2010. CMS Spokesperson-elect Guido Tonelli made both appointments.

"I wanted to have people from the Tevatron," said Tonelli, a physicist at INFN and University of Pisa who was elected as the next CMS spokesperson in March. "The startup will be a very important phase for CMS. Having people who have gone through this experience before is a great asset to me."

Fisk currently serves as the U.S. CMS deputy software and computing manager and CMS co-coordinator for offline and computing integration. In his new role, Fisk will be responsible for the entire computing system for CMS. "We are in good shape thanks to the people who came before me," he said.

In addition to overseeing the U.S. contribution to the silicon strip tracker, Incandela currently serves as the CMS deputy physics coordinator. He will share his deputy spokesperson responsibilities with CERN's Albert De Roeck. "The physics and detector groups have spent over two years continuously improving data-driven methods and preparing to do physics," he said. "What remains is to put it all together. This is where Albert De Roeck and I will concentrate our attention."

Fisk and Incandela join another U.S. CMS collaborator, Wesley Smith of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who will continue as trigger coordinator.

In selecting his "cabinet," which consists of two deputies and six Level 1 coordinators, Tonelli strove to create a central team with expertise in both hardware and physics. Next, Tonelli will seek nominations for deputy coordinators, a publication committee chair and project managers. He plans to announce this second phase of appointments in September.

-- Elizabeth Clements

Call for applications for awards in URA Visiting Scholars Program

Universities Research Association, Inc. (URA) has announced a deadline of September 18, 2009 for the submission of applications for the second round of 2009 awards in the URA Visiting Scholars Program at Fermilab. Successful applicants will be notified at the end of October.

These awards provide financial support for faculty and students from URA's 87 member universities to work at Fermilab for periods of up to one year. URA makes two rounds of awards each year, in the spring and fall. The application deadline for the spring 2010 cycle will be in February 2010. URA will notify successful applicants in late March.

Proposals may range from attendance at conferences or summer schools to year-long research stays. Support from this program can include transportation costs, local lodging expenses during short visits and stipend support during a longer visit. Individuals may receive awards up to a maximum of $50,000 in any 12-month period. With the 16 awards conferred in May 2009, URA has bestowed a total of 50 awards since the beginning of the program in 2008.

The program is a corporate commitment to Fermilab made by URA under the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC contract with the Department of Energy. The 87 URA member universities each contribute $5,000 per year for five years in support of joint Fermilab-URA research and education initiatives.

For details on the URA Visiting Scholars at Fermilab Program, including eligibility, application procedure, award administration, and names of award recipients, visit the URA Visiting Scholars Website.

Weekend power, AC outages, cafeteria closure; Monday morning power outage

On Saturday, July 25, shutdown workers will turn off the power feeder that controls the air conditioning to Wilson Hall. This will cause a drastic reduction in the building's air conditioning service on both Saturday and Sunday. To reduce the building's heat load, please plan to shut down all electronics at the close of business on Friday, July 24.

Although Wilson Hall will not be closed, it will be uncomfortably warm. For this reason, the cafeteria will not open on Saturday.

Power to the Accelerator Division's computer room will be out from 5:30 p.m. Friday and remain out until 7:30 a.m. Monday morning. This means no AD computers will operate.

Most power and all air conditioning will be restored late Sunday evening in time for business Monday morning.

A separate power outage will take place from 7-7:30 a.m. Monday morning. All beamline areas, Wilson Hall and AD areas except for the Main Injector will be without power during this time. From 8-9 a.m., another outage at the Kautz Road substation will affect only the Main Injector.