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Have a safe day!
Tuesday, Dec. 18
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR TODAY
Wednesday, Dec. 19
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO FERMILAB COLLOQUIUM THIS WEEK
Click here for NALCAL,
a weekly calendar with links to additional information.
Ongoing and upcoming conferences at Fermilab
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Tuesday, Dec. 18
- Breakfast: All-American breakfast
- Old El Paso lime chicken
- Ye Olde fish and chips
- Chicken pot pie
- Smart cuisine: honey dijon pork chops
- Gourmet chicken salad sandwich
- Assorted pizza
- Kiwi pecan chicken salad Wilson Hall Cafe Menu
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Wednesday, Dec. 19
Lunch
- Pork tenderloin with brandy cream sauce
- Sweet potatoes
- Sautéed green beans
- Assortment of Christmas cookies
Friday, Dec. 21
Dinner
Closed
Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.
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One minute with Mari Mendez, administrative associate in the Business Services Section
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Mari Mendez helps make sure the Business Services Section runs smoothly. Photo: Reidar Hahn
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How long have you been at Fermilab?
It will be 24 years on Jan. 16. I started in the Computing Division at the Feynman Computing Center, and in May 1993 I moved to the Legal Office, which was under the Business Services Section at that time. I moved to the section office in October 2002, and I've been there ever since.
What's a typical workday like?
There is no typical workday. I start with e-mails, lots of e-mails. (So far, no one has taken my suggestion of E-mail-Free Fridays. Wouldn't that be great?) They're a pretty good indicator of how my day is going to go and the sorts of things I'll be dealing with, such as meeting deadlines, processing rush requisitions, scheduling meetings and reviewing travel requests, just to name a few. It's definitely never routine.
What's the best part of your job?
I like helping people out, and this job gives me plenty of opportunities to do that. And, though I don't know a lot about science, it's pretty neat to think that something I did may have had a small part in an experiment or project that could potentially have an impact on the world.
What has kept you coming back for 24 years?
It doesn't seem like 24 years. I love it here. I think it's a great place to work, especially if you have children. All of the bosses I have worked for have been very good at understanding that family comes first, and that's important to me. I've been very fortunate to work with some of Fermilab's best, and I can't say enough about how great they are.
—Andre Salles
If there is an employee you'd like to see profiled in an upcoming issue of Fermilab Today, please e-mail today@fnal.gov.
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Linac beam now turned on
The RFQ injector line has successfully turned on beam to the Neutron Therapy Facility, a major milestone in commissioning the new injector line. Soon researchers will accelerate beam to the high-energy linac. Should all go as planned, in the next two weeks the project will be complete with the delivery of beam to the high-energy linac.
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Liquid scintillator beginning to fill NOvA far-detector blocks
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Work to fill the NOvA far-detector blocks in Ash River, Minn., with scintillator oil began last week. Here, a Wayne Transport truck unloads the scintillator oil that will fill the NOvA far-detector blocks. When a neutrino strikes an atom in the liquid scintillator that fills the 15-kiloton far detector, it releases a burst of charged particles. Scientists can detect these particles and use them to learn about neutrino interactions. Photo: William Miller, NOvA installation manager
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NOvA Deputy Project Manager Rick Tesarek and Master Electronic Technician Mark Gebhard of Indiana University appear pleased after the first two modules of the first NOvA far-detector block were successfully filled with scintillator oil. Photo: William Miller, NOvA installation manager
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Dan Hooper TEDx talk online
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On Nov. 9, Fermilab physicist Dan Hooper joined a group of the area's brightest at TEDxNaperville, an independently produced conference held at the Grounds for Hope Café in Lisle. Hooper's talk focused on the discovery of the Higgs boson and why it's an important milestone in particle physics. Watch the entire 12-minute talk. |
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Japan in pole position to host particle smasher
From Nature, Dec. 14, 2012
As Europe and the United States struggle through the worst economic crisis in decades, Japan has emerged as the great hope for the future of particle physics. An international consensus is rapidly forming that the island nation is the only possible host for the International Linear Collider (ILC), a multi-billion-dollar machine that will sustain the next generation of researchers.
"Japan is it," says physicist Barry Barish, the head of the Global Design Effort for the ILC.
At a ceremony in Tokyo today, Barish and other members of the ILC team will hand over the finalized design of the ILC to an independent committee of researchers. The blueprint is for a 31-kilometre-long track of superconducting cavities that can accelerate particles to energies of up to 500 gigaelectronvolts before colliding them. The energy of the collisions should provide a brief glimpse of heavier particles, which would then quickly decay inside one of two detectors.
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Happy holidays!
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Fermilab Director
Pier Oddone |
I wish you and your family happy holidays. It has been a wonderful year for particle physics with the discovery of the Higgs-like particle at the LHC and the measurement of θ13 by the Daya Bay experiment in China, which opened the window for future neutrino experiments like LBNE. Our theorists are as happy as one can be figuring out what the Higgs might tell us and where the long-sought supersymmetry might be hiding.
At our own laboratory, we have had a trying year, but ultimately we accomplished what we needed to do to ensure a vital future for the laboratory. All the projects we started or that are under construction are going well: Mu2e, Muon g-2, NOvA, LBNE and MicroBooNE. NOvA is technically in good shape, if very tight on contingency. The successful reconfiguration of LBNE and the achievement of CD-1 approval for LBNE, after the turbulence it underwent earlier in the year, is worth celebrating and is a credit to the laboratory and to our physics colleagues across the country. MINERvA, MINOS+ and SeaQuest are ready to take data. DECam is installed and working. The spectroscopic survey for dark energy, dubbed MS-DESI, the upgrades for CMS and the generation-2 dark-matter experiments are all ready to start. The R&D on future machines such as Project X and muon accelerators is going well, and the Illinois Accelerator Research Center will start operations in the new year.
The new year will also see the start of physics production after the long accelerator shutdown. Turning the machines on and achieving the full promised power will be a major challenge. But the real challenge for us is to complete a full transition from our previous state of operating with few or no construction projects to a laboratory that excels in planning and building projects. The planned capital investment in the laboratory for this decade is large, and among the national laboratories we must strive to become exemplary at managing and delivering on projects. We are not there yet by a fair measure, so this area will be the major focus for the laboratory.
The best to you and your loved ones. Have happy and safe holidays!
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IARC Office, Technical and Education Building takes shape
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The IARC Office, Technical and Education Building's exposed structure will add focus to its interior spaces. Photo: Cindy Arnold
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The dramatic spaces within the IARC Office, Technical and Education Building are beginning to take shape. This view is from the third-floor balcony of the lunch room. The exposed structure is intended to add focus and power to the space. The area just to the right of the support beams will become a roof garden and outdoor dining area.
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Electron gun and ASTA
Yesterday's article on the new electron gun for NML did not properly reference ASTA's status as a proposed project. The article has been updated to reflect that status. We regret the error.
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Doon Gibbs named interim lab director
From Brookhaven National Laboratory, Dec. 13, 2012
The Brookhaven Science Associates (BSA) Board of Directors has been conducting a search for the BNL Laboratory Director since Sam Aronson communicated to the BSA Board earlier this year that he intended to step down as Lab Director effective December 31, 2012. While the search is ongoing, we have not yet identified a permanent replacement for Sam. The Board has asked Doon Gibbs to serve as the Interim Lab Director until a new Lab Director is identified, which will allow Sam to pursue other interests. We are pleased to announce that Doon has accepted the role of Interim Lab Director effective January 1, 2013.
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Chance of rain/snow
