Andrzej Szelc elected co-spokesperson for SBND collaboration

Andrzej Szelc, a professor at the University of Edinburgh, has been elected as co-spokesperson for the Short-Baseline Near Detector experiment. SBND plays an essential role in the Short-Baseline Neutrino Program at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

“I’ve seen SBND’s voyage from an idea to becoming a reality. It’s a great honor to be chosen as the first international spokesperson to co-lead this collaboration into this next stage of data analysis,” said Szelc.

Spokespeople for physics experiments are principal leaders of the collaborations conducting the research. They ensure experiments operate effectively to meet scientific goals and serve as the primary representatives in communications.

The SBND collaboration brings together 210 scientists from 40 institutions in Brazil, Spain, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S.

Szelc, who previously served as the experiment’s physics coordinator, will succeed Ornella Palamara — a senior Fermilab scientist recently appointed director of user facilities and experiments — who has co-led the collaboration since 2014.

“Ornella has been instrumental in building the fantastic SBND collaboration, and her scientific vision and contributions to the experiment go back to the very beginning when we just had a notion of building a near detector along the neutrino beamline,” said David Schmitz, professor at the University of Chicago and co-spokesperson for the SBND collaboration. “Andrzej’s experience with SBND and other experiments of this kind is very broad, and I look forward to working with him as we continue our first physics run.”

As the near detector in the Short-Baseline Neutrino Program, SBND observes the neutrinos as they are produced in the Fermilab beam. This enables the SBN Program to definitively know the composition of the neutrino beam before it has a chance to change, through a process called oscillation, giving the collaboration a better handle on testing for the existence of a new type of neutrino.

Since seeing their first neutrinos last year, the SBND collaboration started their first official physics run in December. “We have this detector that works fantastically well, and we can reconstruct the neutrino interactions very, very precisely,” said Szelc. “Already, we’re seeing about 7,000 neutrinos per day. That adds up to the largest sample of neutrino interactions on argon in the world.”

SBND’s large data sample will enable physicists to study neutrino interactions in unprecedented detail. The physics of these interactions is crucial for other neutrino experiments, such as the long-baseline Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment.

“Our live time for capturing neutrinos has been 98.6%, which isn’t something every experiment can say for its first run,” said Schmitz. “And the quality of the data is extremely high, thanks to the international team of amazing scientists working on SBND, strong support from Fermilab for the experiment, and an incredibly stable beam delivery from the Fermilab Accelerator Complex, making this year the best yet for the Booster Neutrino Beam.”

With so many neutrino interactions, SBND is also advancing techniques for the analysis of scientific data, including machine learning methods, which can be applied at nearly every stage of the data analysis. The progress made with this kind of pattern recognition software can be used in other applications like medical physics — including analysis of images from X-rays, CT-scans and MRIs.

The Short-Baseline Near Detector international collaboration is hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. The collaboration consists of 40 partner institutions, including national labs and universities from five countries. SBND is one of the particle detectors in the Short-Baseline Neutrino Program that provides information on a beam of neutrinos created by Fermilab’s particle accelerators.

Three photographers have captured winning shots in Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratory’s 2025 Photowalk competition. These photographers will move on to the international Photowalk, with their images competing with photos from laboratories around the world. 

The winning photos, in alphabetical order by photographer, are “The Underside of Quantum Computing” by Mark Kaletka of Batavia, Illinois, “SSR1” by Krsto Sitar of Lombard, Illinois, and “QUANTUM COMPUTING” by Perry Slade of Aurora, Illinois.

A panel of four Fermilab judges reviewed 63 photos submitted by 21 photographers. They selected three winning images that represented the science and spirit of America’s premier particle physics and accelerator laboratory.

On Saturday, July 26, 2025, two dozen photographers visited Fermilab from across the United States; two even came from Europe. Guided by scientists and staff, the photographers received exclusive, behind-the-scenes tours of areas and experiments that are typically not accessible to the public: the Quantum Garage at the Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems (SQMS) Center, the Muon g-2 experiment hall, the Short Baseline Near Detector (SBND), the Fermilab Accelerator Science and Technology/Integrable Optics Test Accelerator (FAST/IOTA) facility and the Industrial Center Building.

“It was an honor and a privilege to have the opportunity to participate in the 2025 Fermilab Photowalk. Photography’s my way of showing how I see the world and this recognition inspires me to keep creating,” said winning photographer Perry Slade from Aurora, Illinois.

“I’m very familiar with Fermilab, so I especially enjoy seeing it revealed through new perspectives — an unusual angle, the play of light or a close-up detail that transforms the familiar,” says Georgia Schwender, visual arts coordinator at Fermilab. “What intrigues me most is the sheer range of possibilities; every photographer brings their own way of seeing, reminding us that even the most well-known places can surprise us when viewed through a fresh lens. Serving as a judge for this contest was an honor, and it gave me the chance to experience Fermilab through the creativity and vision of others.”

Kaletka’s, Sitar’s and Slade’s winning photos will now advance to the worldwide Global Physics Photowalk competition. A shortlist of global finalists will be announced by the Interactions Collaboration in September, followed by a final selection through a jury and public vote. The winners of the international competition will be featured in a future issue of the CERN Courier and in Symmetry magazine.

The Fermilab Photowalk is part of the global event organized by the Interactions Collaboration, an international group of science communicators dedicated to telling stories about particle physics research and achievements. Fermilab has taken part in previous Photowalks organized by Interactions, and this year is one of 16 participating particle physics laboratories on three continents. Winners from the local contests advance to the international Photowalk competition, where the final winners will be chosen later this fall.

Fermilab will display a selection of photos from the Photowalk in Wilson Hall’s second-floor Art Gallery in September. A reception for will be hosted from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sept. 5 at the Fermilab Art Gallery. No registration is required for this event. Wilson Hall is open to visitors on Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. All visitors age 18 and older must present a Real ID-compliant form of identification to enter.

What do you do at Fermilab?

I’m a senior engineer, and I design application-specific integrated circuits, what we call ASICs, for quantum and high-energy physics applications, specializing on the analog side. Typically, these are intended for extreme environments. For my projects, that means exceptionally cold, but it can also mean extreme radiation.

I work on taking an analog signal from a detector that’s looking for a particle or measuring some quantum property and designing the piece that converts the signal to the digital domain. Once the information is digitized, you can do a lot more calculations, processing, and many other things more efficiently in terms of power and space.

How long have you been at Fermilab, and how has your career led you to this position?

I’ve worked at Fermilab in the Microelectronics Division for five years.

Before that, I worked at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, where I also got to work on some quantum projects. Fermilab was beginning to ramp up in the quantum space, so it was a natural fit. I really appreciate the collaborative atmosphere at Fermilab. Working with others in unique situations and delivering products as a team are my favorite aspects of projects here.

Before Sandia, I earned my master’s and Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering at Georgia Tech.

What is the main project you are working on now?

My main project is one of the few things I’m working on that’s not cryogenic. It’s a fast-timing design, where we’re trying to measure events with very precise time resolution — below 10 picoseconds — for four-dimensional tracking of particles. This buys a lot of information because it provides, not only a position, but also a time. These ASICs tend to accompany low-gain avalanche diodes, so it’s a cross-disciplinary project that provides another way to get better data for scientists to discover more.

What do you find most challenging about your job?

The unique kind of requirements for our work, although I also enjoy the unusual specifications and the challenges that are outside the norm. In quantum, the deep cryogenic environment means that there’s not a lot of design infrastructure in place. Usually, when you design a chip, there are established pieces inside a process design kit, what we call a PDK. Those don’t exist yet for cryogenic temperatures.

You typically have all sorts of checks, like simulations and mask layout rules, to make sure your chip will do what you want it to do. But when you cool something close to absolute zero, much of that is compromised. You can make some educated guesses about how a transistor may act, but in the end, you are dealing with a level of unknown that is not normal for what we do in chip development.

What do you see coming up for quantum?

The future of quantum is scaling. When you scale up, the number of resources you have to accomplish a goal all start falling. You have one thing that took this much power and this much space to accomplish, but now somebody says, “I want to do this for a hundred things, all at once.” That’s the era that we want to be in for quantum right now.

I have previously designed amplifiers that were microwatts of power, and that was great. Soon it will be, “I need 10 amplifiers for that much power.” A unique characteristic of dilution refrigerators is that you only get so much power. Even if you scale up, it’s not a given that you will get more cooling capacity. We constantly need to think of new ways to approach our goals with that in mind.  

What do you like to do when you’re not at work?

I enjoy spending time with my family, camping, watching TV shows and movies, and the occasional do-it-yourself project around the house. Back in May, we had a lot of fun camping with the Cub Scouts right outside the stadium after a game for the Kane County Cougars, the local minor league baseball team. We enjoyed the fireworks and a movie after the game. My wife and I like to watch sci-fi, so we’re excited for the last two seasons of Silo coming out.