NAME:
Northern Illinois University

HOME TOWN:
DeKalb, Illinois

MASCOT:
Huskie

SCHOOL COLORS:
Cardinal red and black

PARTICLE PHYSICS COLLABORATIONS:
DZero, ATLAS, CALICE.

EXPERIMENTS AT FERMILAB:
DZero, CALICE and R&D for beam physics using the photo injector and muon-based accelerator.

SCIENTISTS AND STUDENTS AT FERMILAB:
Five scientists and 10 students.

COLLABORATING AT FERMILAB SINCE:
1986

MAJOR CONTRIBUTIONS:
Design construction and operation of the DZero muon detector, design and operation of the DZero trigger systems, data collection and data analysis. NIU collaborators wrote 90 percent of the software for the muon system used in Run 1. NIU Professor Gerald Blazey served as DZero co-spokesperson from 2002 to 2006. NIU has participated in detector R&D for the ILC since 2001. NIU is also a partner in the Scintillator Detector Development Laboratory, located in the Fermilab Village.

RESEARCH FOCUS:
Prior to 1995: aiding the search for the top quark. Post 1995: searching for new phenomena at the highest available energies.

WHAT SETS PARTICLE PHYSICS AT NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY APART?
We’re the closest university to Fermilab. Because of our proximity, we’ve had extensive involvement of undergraduates in the construction and operation of DZero. Since 1986, NIU has had 79 graduate students in experimental particle physics. Of those, 77 have worked at Fermilab. The university also has had 86 undergraduates who have worked at Fermilab.

FUNDING AGENCY:
Base funding is from the National Science Foundation, with a small portion coming from the Department of Energy.

FAVORITE NATIONAL LABORATORY:
Fermilab