FSU physicist to lead scientists at national laboratory

More than 3,000 scientists from around the world conduct research at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, better known as Fermilab, each year. Now those researchers have a new leader: Associate Professor Todd Adams of the Florida State University Department of Physics.

Adams, a member of the FSU faculty since 2001, has been elected chair of Fermilab’s Users Executive Committee (UEC) for a one-year term. Fermilab, located in Batavia, Ill., is the premier particle physics laboratory in the United States, and the UEC is the organizing body that represents its visiting and laboratory-based scientists, known collectively as “users.”

“Fermilab is the nation’s top particle physics laboratory, and it is a great honor to be elected chair of the Users Executive Committee,” Adams said. “It is an exciting time in particle physics, and I look forward to the challenges of the coming year.”

At Fermilab, the UEC is charged with representing the lab’s users to its Directorate, to various funding agencies, and to Congress. As such, the committee and its chair play a vital role in ensuring that the views of the Fermilab users community are conveyed accurately to their respective audiences and that users are kept abreast of issues of potential interest to them.

“Being elected chair of this critically important committee by a user group consisting of some 3,000 members speaks volumes about the leadership skills of Dr. Adams and the esteem in which the community holds the High Energy Physics Group at The Florida State University,” said Mark Riley, FSU’s Raymond K. Sheline Professor of Physics and chair of the Department of Physics. “Congratulations to him on this marvelous achievement.”

Among other responsibilities, the Fermilab UEC (along with the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory Users Organization in Menlo Park, Calif., and the US Large Hadron Collider Users Organization) visits Washington, D.C., each winter to meet with members of Congress and officials from the executive branch over a three-day period. Last year, approximately 35 users visited more than 200 U.S. senators and representatives to promote science funding, particularly for particle physics research. In addition, meetings were held with officials of the U.S. Department of Energy (including Under Secretary Steven E. Koonin), the National Science Foundation, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. The UEC, led by its chair, provides the majority of the organizational effort for the trip.

The committee also sponsors an annual meeting of Fermilab users each June. More than 1,000 users attend the two-day meeting, which highlights laboratory activities and features presentations from distinguished guests from Washington and other national and international laboratories. Other activities involve issues important to non-U.S. users such as visas, improving the quality of life at Fermilab, and providing outreach training and opportunities for the users. Five subcommittees coordinate these activities.

The UEC consists of 13 members, six of whom are elected each year to serve two-year terms. The past chair serves an additional year to provide experience.

Adams was elected to the UEC in summer 2009 and will continue on the committee until 2012. Previous UEC members from Florida State University include Sharon Hagopian (1980-1982, 2002-2005), Joseph Lannutti (1982-1984) and David Levinthal (1984-1986). Hagopian also served as UEC chair in 2003-2004.

Founded in 1967, Fermilab is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics. Its Tevatron collider is a landmark particle accelerator; at 3.9 miles in circumference, it is the world’s second-highest-energy particle accelerator after the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Switzerland. That accelerator is about 16.7 miles in circumference.

Adams has performed research at Fermilab since 1997, when he was a postdoctoral associate. Since joining Florida State, he has worked on the DØ (“D-Zero”) experiment at the Tevatron with FSU faculty and scientists Andrew Askew, Susan Blessing, Sharon Hagopian, Harrison Prosper and Horst Wahl. The DØ collaboration of some 600 scientists analyzes the results of collisions of protons and antiprotons to study the basic particles of matter.

In addition to his research at Fermilab, Adams is one of 15 faculty members, postdoctoral researchers and students from Florida State’s physics department who are involved in a specific experiment at the LHC known as CMS, short for “Compact Muon Solenoid.” CMS is an international collaboration involving some 3,600 scientists, engineers and technicians from 38 countries that uses a large machine known as a particle detector to record data on various subatomic particles released when the LHC smashes protons together with tremendous force.