Roshanda Spillers is a lifelong student. With five academic degrees under her belt and more to come, she’s one of the vital lab staff who make sure that the experiments’ electronics are in working order and that the particle accelerators are well-maintained. A new grandmother who’s learning piano while going to school, she encourages those who love science to pursue their dreams relentlessly.
Fermilab scientist and University of Chicago professor of astronomy and astrophysics Craig Hogan gives perspective on how the Holometer program aims at a tiny scale — the Planck scale — to help answer one of the universe’s most basic questions: Why does everything appear to happen at definite times and places? He contextualizes the results and offers optimism for future researchers.
From Forbes, Feb. 10, 2021: Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln explains why there should be equal amounts of matter and antimatter in the universe. There aren’t. He discusses several current theories that try to explain the discrepancy. Better understanding this imbalance is an aim of ongoing experiments, such as DUNE, which is being built at Fermilab.
This International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we feature the talks, presentations or interviews of four Fermilab women who are pushing at the frontiers of particle physics.
From Donne e Scienza, Feb. 5, 2021: In this interview, Fermilab scientist Anna Grassellino talks about quantum computing, her career trajectory, and women and girls in STEM.
The U.S. Department of Energy has given the U.S. High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider Accelerator Upgrade Project approval to move full-speed-ahead in building and delivering components for the HL-LHC, specifically, cutting-edge magnets and accelerator cavities that will enable more rapid-fire collisions at the collider. The collider upgrades will allow physicists to study particles such as the Higgs boson in greater detail and reveal rare new physics phenomena. The U.S. collaborators on the project may now move into production mode.
From The University of Chicago Physical Sciences, Feb. 8, 2021: Fermilab scientist Richard Kron is retiring from the University of Chicago. He co-founded the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which created the most detailed 3-D maps of the universe and recorded the spectra for more than 3 million astronomical objects. His approach influenced the Dark Energy Survey, which created one of the most accurate dark matter maps of the universe and which Kron will continue to direct.
Well-known and appreciated by the scientific community for his work on beam physics and supercolliders, Shiltsev joins an organization whose membership included Marie Curie, Albert Einstein and Luigi Galvani.
From iO Donna, Feb. 5, 2021: In this Q&A, Fermilab scientist Anna Grassellino discusses quantum computing, the weight of heading SQMS’ ambitious aim and how she hopes she serves as an example for girls as a woman in science.
Symmetry writer Sarah Charley answers life and relationship questions through the lens of fundamental physics. Instead of using analogies from elsewhere in life to explain science, she’ll use physics analogies to explore human nature. This time, she tackles unwanted gifts, when to give up on a dream and how friendships might be like Newtonian mechanics.