Linda Cremonesi stumbled upon neutrinos somewhat by accident. Or maybe it was fate.
As an exchange student from the University of Milan, Cremonesi needed to choose a topic for her final project at Queen Mary University of London. “All the other students that were enrolled had already chosen their projects, so there wasn’t a lot left,” she said.
One of the few remaining topics was neutrinos: tiny, elusive fundamental particles that permeate the universe. “I didn’t know what they were, so I ended up googling things on my phone on the way to meet up with my supervisor,” she recalled.
Since that serendipitous introduction, Cremonesi has never parted from neutrinos. She would go on to work on Japanese neutrino experiments T2K and Hyper-Kamiokande while earning her doctorate. Today, Cremonesi is an associate professor in particle physics and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at Imperial College London. And as of April 1, she is the new co-spokesperson of the international NOvA collaboration.
With NOvA co-spokesperson Fermilab scientist Alex Himmel, Cremonesi will help set research priorities, keep the experiment running smoothly and represent the teams to the outside world.
NOvA — short for NuMI Off-axis νe Appearance — is a long-baseline neutrino experiment managed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. It consists of a neutrino detector at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, and a larger detector 500 miles away in Ash River, Minnesota. Physicists generate a powerful neutrino beam at Fermilab, send it through both detectors, and then study how the neutrinos change over time and space. The collaboration can then make insights into neutrino properties, types and phenomena to learn more about the elusive particles that permeate — and could even explain some of the mysteries of — our universe.
“Neutrinos do not give up their secrets easily,” said Himmel. “Even after 10 years of operating NOvA, there is still so much for us to learn.”
“Even after 10 years of operating NOvA, there is still so much for us to learn.”
Alex Himmel, NOvA co-spokesperson
The NOvA collaboration consists of 203 scientists and engineers from 52 institutions in eight countries, and the experiment began fully operating in October 2014. Shortly after, Cremonesi joined as a postdoctoral researcher at University College London. “What really drew me to NOvA was how welcoming it was and how valued I felt from the beginning,” she said. “This is something that I really like about this collaboration, and definitely something that I want to bring forward.”
In 2022, Cremonesi was appointed analysis coordinator, requiring her to oversee the entire physics program of NOvA. In this role, she shepherded the oscillation analysis of 10 years of NOvA data to publication, helped coordinate the first joint analysis with Japanese experiment T2K and enhanced the internal review processes to increase the experiment’s physics output twofold. Running for co-spokesperson was a natural next step.
“My goal is to lead NOvA into its final stage, where we can solidify our findings and cement our scientific legacy.”
Linda Cremonesi, NOvA co-spokesperson
“NOvA is in an exciting transition phase,” she said. “While it is already a mature experiment, we still have another few months of data collection ahead. My goal is to lead NOvA into its final stage, where we can solidify our findings and cement our scientific legacy.”
The experiment is a vital precursor for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment at the Long Baseline Neutrino Facility, one of Fermilab’s flagship projects. Once complete, DUNE at LBNF will shoot neutrinos through a near detector at Fermilab to a far detector many hundreds of miles away and observe their properties — just like NOvA. But DUNE’s detectors will be separated by 800 miles rather than NOvA’s 500.
Until DUNE is operational, NOvA is the only long-baseline neutrino experiment in the United States. And there is still work to do and results to uncover. By delivering some of the world’s most precise measurements of neutrino oscillations, NOvA has significantly narrowed down the mass constraints, mass hierarchy, and mixing angles of these elusive particles.
But maximizing this concluding dataset is only part of the vision. By laying the groundwork for ambitious joint analyses with other international experiments, the collaboration aims to push the boundaries of neutrino research long after the beam turns off.
“We have a lot that we can give to the international neutrino community,” Cremonesi said. “And that legacy isn’t just in the data. It’s in ensuring we train the next generation of physicists in an environment that is as supportive and dynamic as the science itself.”
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is America’s national laboratory for particle physics and accelerator research. Fermi Forward Discovery Group manages Fermilab for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. Visit Fermilab’s website at www.fnal.gov and follow us on social media.
The American Physical Society has honored Christina Wang, a postdoctoral researcher and Lederman Fellow at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, with the prestigious 2026 Mitsuyoshi Tanaka Award in Experimental Particle Physics for developing novel techniques to detect new particles.
Wang received the award for “pioneering a groundbreaking detection technique using the Compact Muon Solenoid detector [at CERN] to search for weakly-coupled sub-GeV mass dark matter via long-lived particle searches, and for groundbreaking work in quantum sensing, allowing researchers to search for types of currently unobservable dark matter.”
Her thesis details two complementary detection techniques that help researchers search for new physics beyond the Standard Model.
The Standard Model is a well-tested physics theory that explains the fundamental structure of matter. Researchers who study physics beyond the Standard Model, such as Wang, seek to resolve unanswered questions and unexplainable phenomena in high-energy physics that are observable, but not currently accounted for, including the origin of dark matter.
Scientists theorize that dark matter makes up roughly 85% of all matter in the universe. Researchers have never directly observed dark matter. However, they know it exists through observing the gravitational influence it exerts on visible matter. Wang and her collaborators are working diligently to detect and understand this mysterious substance.
Wang’s first approach reinvented how the CMS experiment detects long-lived particles — decaying particles that are notoriously difficult to observe due to their weak interactions with matter. Her method uses the 75 million electronic sensors inside CMS, originally designed to detect muons, to create a shower of secondary long-lived particles, extending their observable state.
The second approach leverages quantum sensing technology to detect individual low-energy photons. Using superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors, researchers can search for photons with exceptionally low noise, improving their ability to identify the extremely faint signals that potential dark matter candidates may produce.
“I am deeply honored to receive the Tanaka Award,” said Wang. “Seeing the list of previous recipients makes this award even more meaningful to me.”
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is America’s national laboratory for particle physics and accelerator research. Fermi Forward Discovery Group manages Fermilab for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. Visit Fermilab’s website at www.fnal.gov and follow us on social media.
When the U.S. Department of Energy launched the Genesis Mission to supercharge artificial intelligence-driven scientific discovery and innovation, it needed more than supercomputers. It required secure, best-in-class infrastructure to store data so researchers across the country could efficiently access the information.
Enter the Fermi Data Platform, or FDP — a system built on thousands of hard drives that make up Fermilab’s scientific storage infrastructure backbone. Selected as a key partner for the Genesis Mission’s American Science Cloud, Fermilab is providing petabytes of storage, robust data-access tools and deep institutional expertise to ensure the data can be used to its fullest potential for AI-enhanced scientific research.
Fermilab is America’s particle physics laboratory, and decades of working with immense datasets have given its researchers longstanding expertise in scientific data management. Today, the platform supports datasets for multiple experiments and technologies, including measured and simulated data for the CMS experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider; data from Fermilab’s Short Baseline Neutrino program; and data used in quantum research, microelectronics development and advanced theory work. Fermilab is also preparing for the data needs of the upcoming flagship Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment.
“At Fermilab, we orchestrate thousands of disks to provide petabytes of storage space, and we make sure researchers can access their data quickly and securely.”
Oliver Gutsche, lead of the Fermi Data Platform project
With data storage and access tools like the Fermi Data Platform, the Genesis Mission’s American Science Cloud brings together scientific expertise from DOE national laboratories, academic institutions and industry partners. By combining this expertise with advanced AI techniques and the development of new AI models, the American Science Cloud aims to accelerate discovery across disciplines — from high-energy physics to materials science to fusion-energy research.
The American Science Cloud will be an integrated infrastructure with advanced AI services: a system where a researcher can describe what they need and have AI-driven tools tap into national laboratory resources, including supercomputers, scientific datasets and simulation capabilities.
The Genesis Mission’s goal is to reduce the time between asking a scientific question and getting a meaningful answer by automating many of the steps in between — searching relevant scientific publications, running preliminary simulations, filtering results and presenting researchers with a refined picture of where to focus next.
“Give me the 10 most promising materials for batteries — the system does a literature search, runs some simulations to verify, narrows down that list, and presents it as an answer for further research,” said Gutsche. “That is the kind of workflow the Genesis Mission is designed to enable.”
The goal is not to replace researchers or the scientific process — humans still ask the questions and evaluate the answers. Instead, the aim is to enable scientists to work faster and focus on the insights that matter most.
To do any of this at scale, AI systems need data that is accessible, well-organized and what experts call “AI-ready.” Raw scientific data from instruments and detectors often lacks the structure and metadata — the supporting, behind-the-scenes information — that machine learning models require. Part of Fermi Data Platform’s role is to help bridge that gap, storing datasets from Genesis Mission projects and presenting them for model training and inference.
“Data is the common denominator behind major scientific endeavors, and AI is fundamentally data-driven,” said Chin Guok, partner integration level 1 lead for the American Science Cloud. “To train and run AI models, you need large volumes of data. Fermi Data Platform can support AI training and inference on large scientific datasets.”
When the Fermi Data Platform was established as an American Science Cloud infrastructure partner, Fermilab researchers were able to move quickly — offering data storage and data access tools engineered for the kind of active, repeated access that AI-supported research demands. This partnership now allows researchers to leverage DOE resources more seamlessly, laying a powerful foundation for accelerated scientific discovery for the benefit of all.
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is America’s national laboratory for particle physics and accelerator research. Fermi Forward Discovery Group manages Fermilab for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. Visit Fermilab’s website at www.fnal.gov and follow us on social media.
The race to build functional, large quantum computers is not just about faster processing, it’s about solving complex problems to drive innovation and benefit society. To reach this bright future, researchers must develop the ability to precisely control many interconnected qubits, the basic units of information in quantum computing, to maximize their performance.
“We are excited to team up with Harmoniqs. As we scale QICK to control greater numbers of qubits, we’ll use Piccolo.jl to optimize our control pulses in a way that accounts for both qubit dynamics and the QICK hardware.”
Sho Uemura, Fermilab
Drawing on decades of experience creating microelectronics and software to run particle physics experiments, engineers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory began developing a quantum research tool called QICK in 2020. Comprised of open-source software, radio-frequency electronics and commercial hardware, QICK is a customizable system that controls qubits and measures and reads out their quantum states. As such, it plays an important role in optimizing qubit performance. Its proven ability to precisely synchronize short bursts of energy called pulses to control qubits makes it a game changer for scaling up quantum computers.
More than 500 scientists worldwide are now using QICK, and its developers continue to enhance and extend its capabilities through collaborations with DOE national labs, academia and industry.
Through one such collaboration, Fermilab is working with industry partner Harmoniqs to bring together the company’s open-source quantum optimization software, called Piccolo.jl, and QICK to enable precise qubit control at larger scales.
Integrating the two enables users of the Piccolo.jl software to test pulse optimizations — quantum computing techniques that precisely control the shape, frequency, amplitude and phase of the electromagnetic or microwave signals that control qubits and define their basic operations. This integration gives QICK users access to Piccolo’s algorithms without the manual setup otherwise required.
Piccolo.jl optimizes pulse shapes with finer granularity than standard optimization software, borrowing proven algorithms from robotics and aerospace to bring stability and rigor to quantum hardware control. It makes minute adjustments to determine the best pulse shape for a particular use case.
“We are excited to team up with Harmoniqs. As we scale QICK to control greater numbers of qubits, we’ll use Piccolo.jl to optimize our control pulses in a way that accounts for both qubit dynamics and the QICK hardware,” said Sho Uemura, lead software developer and a core member of the QICK development team at Fermilab. “Pairing the two can help you get to a better end result much faster, with fewer trial measurements, less effort testing different sets of parameters and a shorter time to results.”
Importantly, both systems are open-source, reflecting a collaboration ethos common in particle physics. They are available to the public, cost-effective and built to be customized and expanded by their users.
“Piccolo.jl gives researchers an open path into advanced pulse optimization. When integrated with QICK, it demonstrates what’s possible when open-source foundations meet purpose-built commercial software,” said Jack Champagne, chief technology officer at Harmoniqs. “QICK gives its users the hardware to deliver pulses. Piccolo.jl gives them the tools to design those pulses with hardware-aware precision. We’re looking forward to bringing that full capability to every platform that relies on QICK.”
“Piccolo.jl gives researchers an open path into advanced pulse optimization. When integrated with QICK, it demonstrates what’s possible when open-source foundations meet purpose-built commercial software.”
Jack Champagne, Harmoniqs
With tools like QICK and Piccolo.jl working in concert, researchers are simplifying how precise quantum control strategies are developed and deployed. The partnership lowers barriers to experimentation and accelerates progress toward larger, more reliable quantum systems, bringing the promise of practical quantum computing closer to reality.
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is America’s national laboratory for particle physics and accelerator research. Fermi Forward Discovery Group manages Fermilab for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. Visit Fermilab’s website at www.fnal.gov and follow us on social media.
The development of QICK at Fermilab was originally supported primarily through the lab’s key partnership in the Quantum Science Center, a DOE National Quantum Initiative Science Research Center headquartered at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Mark Ross-Lonergan, an assistant professor at Columbia University, has been elected co-spokesperson for MicroBooNE — a major neutrino experiment at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and an essential part of the lab’s neutrino research program.
Joining current MicroBooNE co-spokesperson Justin Evans of the University of Manchester, Ross-Lonergan takes over for Matt Toups, who recently completed his term. Spokespeople for large scientific collaborations help set research priorities, keep experiments running smoothly and represent the teams to the outside world. MicroBooNE brings together approximately 190 scientists from 40 institutions worldwide.
“Getting to work even more closely with all the amazing students, postdocs and colleagues that make up MicroBooNE is incredibly exciting,” said Ross-Lonergan. “This experiment helped build me into the physicist, and the person, I am today, and I’m really happy to have the chance to give back to the collaboration as we enter the next chapter.”
The MicroBooNE detector was designed to study neutrinos — tiny, nearly massless particles that pass through ordinary matter almost undetected. To track them, MicroBooNE used 170 tons of liquid argon chilled to nearly minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit. When a neutrino happened to collide with an argon atom in the detector, it produced a burst of charged particles. Those particles left trails in the liquid argon that the detector could record in fine detail.
This technology, known as a liquid-argon time projection chamber, allows scientists to identify exactly what kind of particle is being detected and where it came from — like watching the wake left by a boat on calm water and identifying the type of boat that created the wake.
“This experiment helped build me into the physicist, and the person, I am today, and I’m really happy to have the chance to give back to the collaboration as we enter the next chapter.”
Mark Ross-Lonergan, MicroBooNE co-spokesperson
Since beginning data collection in October 2015 as part of the Short-Baseline Neutrino Program at Fermilab, MicroBooNE was the first large-scale detector of its kind to compile an extensive record of neutrino interactions on a neutrino beamline, advancing scientists’ understanding of how the liquid-argon technology performs at scale.
One of MicroBooNE’s central goals is to follow up on a puzzling result from an earlier experiment called MiniBooNE. That experiment, also hosted at Fermilab, detected more particle interactions than expected — a statistical excess significant enough that it suggested the potential existence of new physics. However, scientists were unable to determine whether the extra signal came from electrons or from single photons. That distinction matters because each would point to a completely different explanation.
The MicroBooNE detector was built specifically to distinguish between these two possibilities. A recent study published in the journal Nature found that electrons are likely not the source. But ruling out photons is more challenging, and the question remains open.
While the MicroBooNE detector is no longer operating, scientists are now analyzing the extensive data that was collected. Ross-Lonergan notes the collaboration’s next major result — which utilizes nearly twice as much data and improved analysis methods — should provide a much clearer answer.
“MicroBooNE has achieved a lot over the past 10 years and produced some remarkable results, but we are by no means done.”
Mark Ross-Lonergan, MicroBooNE co-spokesperson
MicroBooNE also served as a proving ground for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, a much larger future project that will use liquid-argon detectors weighing thousands of tons. Lessons learned from MicroBooNE and the broader Short-Baseline Neutrino Program at Fermilab — including advances in computing algorithms, detector hardware and machine learning techniques — are feeding into DUNE’s design.
Ross-Lonergan is optimistic about what’s ahead in MicroBooNE’s search for undiscovered particles that could link neutrinos to dark matter.
“MicroBooNE has achieved a lot over the past 10 years and produced some remarkable results, but we are by no means done,” he said. “I genuinely believe the next 10 years will prove to be every bit as fruitful and exciting as the last.”
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is America’s national laboratory for particle physics and accelerator research. Fermi Forward Discovery Group manages Fermilab for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. Visit Fermilab’s website at www.fnal.gov and follow us on social media.