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.
News
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.
The American Astronomical Society recognizes Frieman’s significant theoretical contributions to inflationary cosmology and dark‐energy theory and his contributions to optical surveys.
From NOIRLab, Feb. 8, 2021: The Dark Energy Camera, originally used to complete the Dark Energy Survey, has taken the most detailed photo of Messier 83, also known as the Southern Pinwheel galaxy. (In DECam’s second act, scientists can apply for time to use it to collect data that is then made publicly available.) In all, 163 DECam exposures went into creating this image.
From CNN, Feb. 4, 2021: Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln contextualizes a recent signal that some think may be a sign of extraterrestrial intelligence, explaining the hubbub around the recent a transmission originating from Proxima Centauri. With hope for hearing such a signal one day and pride for humanity’s legacy of looking skyward, Lincoln cautions against reading too much into this transmission, which hasn’t yet been vetted with scientific review.