Fermilab engages in cross-lab entrepreneurial SPIN program

An entrepreneurial way of thinking goes beyond commercialization. It is a mindset that helps drive new processes, build more effective teams and enable partnerships. Twenty-one staff members from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator, Argonne National, Princeton Plasma Physics and Ames National Laboratories recently took part in the second cohort of the Strategic Programs for Innovation at the National Labs, or SPIN Program, developed by the University of Chicago’s Polsky Center of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Over 12 weeks, the cohort members with a variety of roles learned to think like entrepreneurs with the goal of increasing innovation at their labs. 

Charles Thangaraj, Fermilab’s senior technology development and commercialization manager, noted that skills like negotiation, communication, cost-benefit analysis and team building all are available to anyone, regardless of their work. “The core idea behind SPIN is to take some of the very best tools developed for business and organizational success and try to apply them in a national lab setting. I think it has proven effective,” he said. 

Based on the success of the inaugural program with Fermilab and Argonne, the Cohort 2 program expanded this year to include Princeton Plasma Physics and Ames Laboratories. The organizers hope to expand it even further for Cohort 3. Participation in the program is merit-based; members are selected through recommendations and an application process.

The selected cohort members came from a variety of work backgrounds, including science, operations, media relations and economics. “We were a wide variety of participants,” said Associate Scientist Sudeshna Ganguly, one of the seven Fermilab cohort members. “That was my favorite part, actually. All of us were showing leadership in different ways. As a team, we exhibited a cohesive sense of responsibility and acted when necessary. Somehow, we managed to do that as individuals and enjoyed the process very much.” 

Through a series of lectures and team-building exercises designed to increase communication and collaboration strategies, the program introduced cohort members to concepts that they applied throughout and ultimately, brought back to their labs. The cohort met at the University of Chicago, Fermilab and Argonne.

The main thrusts of the program were the innovation lab projects. Initially, each cohort member was asked to identify three ideas to increase innovation at their labs. The individuals were then randomly placed into small groups, which worked together over next four weeks to pare these ideas down to two, discussing, negotiating and merging them along the way. 

Learning to conduct customer discovery to get feedback on what people thought were stumbling blocks toward achieving innovation at their labs was a crucial part of this process. To this end, the groups interviewed many stakeholders across the four labs, from scientists to operations to leadership, established employees and those in their early careers, collecting data that helped inform their ideas within their groups and finding themes and commonalities.

“The findings from our customers were very eye-opening for me,” said Akshay Murthy, another cohort member and an associate scientist who recently took on a management role. “It really came down to the fact that many people across the national lab complex feel that innovation at the labs is difficult due to a variety of barriers. We used these interviews as an opportunity to learn more about these barriers and identify solutions.” 

By end of the second month, the small groups merged into two. Each group of 10 to 12 cohort members then had to settle on just one idea, which they described in a 15-minute presentation to leadership from the participating national labs and the SPIN coaches from University of Chicago. A Q&A session at Demo Day on the final day of the cohort followed. 

After participating in SPIN Cohort 2, Murthy said, “I have a better perspective on the operations of national labs, as well as how to be a successful high-level leader — skills that are important to build. That is one of reasons I signed up.”

Both innovation lab projects produced tangible ideas to be brought back to the laboratories for discussion. Ganguly’s team has already written and submitted a funding proposal to the University of Chicago’s Joint Task Force Initiative to implement theirs. And all cohort members are excited to help to establish this entrepreneurial and innovation-focused mindset as part of their labs’ culture. 

“It is a pleasure to see this program grow from two labs in the first cohort, then four. Hopefully, more labs join next year,” said Mauricio Suarez, Fermilab’s deputy head of industry engagement and the Fermilab point of contact for this program. “It is important to grow the network between the labs’ personnel. It is also satisfying to see how the participants improve in their presentation skills, problem formulation, customer discovery, etc. Demo Day made it clear why we want to make this opportunity available to Fermilab staff.” 

Those who would like to learn more about the application process for SPIN Cohort 3, scheduled to take place in early spring 2024, should connect with Mauricio Suarez at suarez@fnal.gov.

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory have teamed up with the DuPage County branch of the NAACP to support high school student researchers participating in the NAACP’s Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics, or ACT-SO. In July, six of these students went to the NAACP National Convention to showcase their scientific work. 

ACT-SO provides students the opportunity to learn about and compete in various fields, including STEM, performing arts, humanities, visual arts, business and culinary arts. “Its main purpose is really to give students an opportunity to showcase their talents, explore areas that they might not have an opportunity to explore and to basically find out what they want to do when they get out of high school,” said Thomas Reed, the ACT-SO coordinator for the DuPage County Branch of the NAACP. 

This year, 26 students in the Chicagoland region produced original research in ACT-SO’s STEM category under the mentorship of experts from the two national labs and the University of Illinois Chicago. Argonne has provided mentors for this program for 10 years and Fermilab for the past three years. 

“Actively participating in shaping the future of science is an integral part of our laboratory mission and our ultimate goal is to inspire the next generation of scientists,” said Victor Mateevitsi, an Argonne computer scientist and ACT-SO mentor. “The ACT-SO program enables us to collaborate closely with students, assisting them in realizing their innovative research ideas while providing them a real-world insight into the life of a scientist at a national laboratory.”

Six high school students — Jasmine Armstead, Bryan Mann, Daniel Mason, Paisley Namowicz, Chandler Brady and Amalachukwa Agwuncha — went to nationals, which brought together gold-medal-winning students from more than 200 counties across the United States.

Four of the students representing the DuPage County branch of the NAACP won the national competition, including Brady and Agwuncha. 

“The whole goal for this partnership is really to fill the pipeline to get more diverse people into the sciences, into STEM in general. That’s one of the things we try to do with ACT-SO,” said Reed. “We’re focused on African-American students in this program, and we want to see them go all the way through college, grad school, then work in research labs throughout the U.S. and the globe or become professors.” 

Onward to nationals 

The students who went to the finals in Boston worked on a wide range of projects, including a thermal vest to help people with sickle cell anemia; the effect of psychological stress on blood pressure; predicting the magnitude of tornadoes; evaluating the viability of solar sails; monitoring air quality across built environments; and anesthetic drug discovery.

Armstead, a 12th grader at Plainfield East High School in Plainfield, Illinois, created a thermal vest to help people with sickle cell anemia in cold weather. “When your hands and feet tend to get cold first it’s because your blood vessels start constricting and blood goes back up to your core,” said Armstead. As she has sickle cell anemia, she could measure the effects of the vest for herself. 

Namowicz, an 11^th grader at Waubonsie Valley High School in Aurora, Illinois, worked on predicting the magnitude of tornadoes, using machine learning. She and her fellow students said they appreciated hearing from speakers from Fermilab, Argonne and other places as part of the ACT-SO program. “It really helped to inspire us as high school students to hopefully have similar outcomes like they did,” said Namowicz. “They were very inspirational and were able to help encourage us to lead similar paths.”  

Agwuncha, a 10th grader at Proviso Mathematics and Science Academy in Forest Park, Illinois, worked on analyzing air-quality levels around Chicago. “The program uncovered one of my hidden strengths,” Agwuncha said. “I discovered that I delivered confident and concise oral presentations. Working with a scientist taught me valuable work ethic skills, such as communication and time management.”

Mann, a ninth grader at Waubonsie Valley High School, said that ACT-SO was “a very enjoyable experience that pays off in the end, and even if you don’t win, I think the experience is the most important thing, especially for my community that would be participating in it.” His project involved evaluating the viability of solar sails. 

Mason, an 11^th grader at Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville, Illinois, studied the effect of psychological stress on blood pressure using supercomputer simulations, which has never been done before. Mason said, “This program at ACT-SO has really helped me take my skills more seriously for science, allowing me to see for myself that I could actually have a passion for computer science, medicine or psychology.” 

“Generally, the projects have some beneficial impact on society, whether it’s to the environment, medicine, improving accessibility to technologies or some other social impact,” said Marco Mambelli, a senior software developer at Fermilab and ACT-SO mentor. “It’s very nice to see how the students are interested in doing research and making a better world.”

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.

U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory scientist Marcela Carena has been recognized as one of Crain’s Chicago Business’ Notable Women in STEM for 2023 in the publication’s Sept. 4 issue.

Head of the Theory Division at Fermilab, Carena is a professor of physics at the University of Chicago, Enrico Fermi Institute, and the Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics. In October 2022, she was one of two scientists to be named the 2022 Department of Energy Distinguished Scientist “for leadership and influential contributions to particle physics, including novel theoretical ideas and strategies for HEP experiments related to the Higgs boson, dark matter and electroweak baryogenesis, and promoting Latin American participation in DOE-hosted experiments.”

The Chicago-based business publication has honored industry and community leaders from Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Michigan; and New York since 2017. Honorees of Crain’s Notable Recognition Programs receive media exposure and exclusive LinkedIn community and networking events.

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.