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DOE has awarded a $1.9 million grant to Northern Illinois University and the Illinois Institute of Technology for the training of next-generation workers in accelerator science and technology. The program will cover student tuition costs for two years and fund paid research assistantships at Fermilab and Argonne. Physics professors Michael Syphers and Philippe Piot, both experts in particle accelerator research and technology, are leading the effort at NIU.

From DOE, Dec. 2, 2019: in a bipartisan vote of 70-15, the United States Senate confirmed Dan Brouillette to be the 15th U.S. secretary of energy. An official swearing in will take place at a later date. Prior to confirmation, Acting Secretary Brouillette served as the deputy secretary of energy under Secretary Rick Perry.

Growing up, scientist Giordon Stark loved his math and physics classes — worlds of equations and problems he could draw out to consider and solve. These came so easily to him. It made sense; growing up, he had become an expert in interpreting the visual. He started practicing so early in life that it wasn’t until he was 3 years old that his parents realized he was deaf. Now he works to ensure the field of physics research is accessible to all.

It started with a cough that wouldn’t go away. After years of medical treatment and a successful heart transplant, physicist Avi Yagil partnered with the doctors who gave him a new heart to bring techniques from particle physics into the evaluation of heart-failure patients.

From AAAS, Nov. 26, 2019: Fermilab scientist Vladimir Shiltsev has been elected a AAAS fellow. Fellows are elected each year by their peers serving on the Council of AAAS, the organization’s member-run governing body. The 2019 group will receive official certificates and rosette pins in gold and blue, colors symbolizing science and engineering, in a ceremony on Feb. 15, 2020, during the AAAS Annual Meeting in Seattle.

From WTTW’s Chicago Tonight, Nov. 25, 2019: Fermilab scientist Dan Hooper spends his time contemplating the biggest mystery of all: how the universe came to be. In this 7-minute television segment, he outlines four big fundamental puzzles stumping cosmologists right now. He also explains these mysteries in his book “At the Edge of Time: Exploring the Mysteries of our Universe’s First Seconds.”