Users Executive Committee

Poster for the 53rd Users (Virtual) Meeting

Agenda | Registration | Poster Abstracts | Virtual Festa Italiana

The annual gathering of the Fermilab Users (Virtual) Meeting will be held on August 10-13th 2020.

This meeting provides an opportunity for Fermilab users and employees to discuss the latest and leading-edge physics results from the experimental and theory programs occurring at the laboratory, as well as exciting new future initiatives at Fermilab. Additionally, the meeting hosts thoughtful presentations from leaders of the scientific policy community. This year’s theme for the meeting is “Defining the Decade” as we reflect on recent achievements and milestones and look ahead in the strategic plan for the next 10 years.

This year we are working to highlight and integrate the lab community as a whole. We’ve designed the agenda to have something to appeal to everyone. You can see the full agenda here and an article at News at Work describing the activities here.

 

Keynote speaker: NASA Astronaut Josh Cassada

Josh A. Cassada (Commander, U.S. Navy, PhD) was selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 2013. He grew up in White Bear Lake, Minnesota and is a physicist and US Navy test pilot. We are delighted to welcome Dr. Cassada (virtually) back to Fermilab, a place he has fond memories of having completed his PhD research on CDF and living on-site in the village for some time. After gaining his PhD from the University of Rochester he became a naval aviator. After two operational deployments in the P-3C, including 23 combat missions, Cassada was a P-3C and P-8A test pilot, as well as an instructor at the US Naval Test Pilot School. Commander Cassada has accumulated more than 3,500 flight hours in over 40 different aircraft.

Josh A. Cassada (Commander, U.S. Navy, PhD) NASA Astronaut

Alvin Tollestrup (1924-2020): A Life in Science

On Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2020, at 10:10 a.m. Central time, Fermilab will pay tribute to Fermilab scientist and National Medal of Technology winner Alvin Tollestrup, who died in February 2020.

Tollestrup played an instrumental role in developing the Tevatron as the world’s leading high-energy physics accelerator and was a founding member of the CDF collaboration. The memorial session will be part of the 2020 Fermilab Users Meeting”.

Michael Childress, President of the Dupage County NAACP

Our meeting theme, “Defining the Decade”, means we are looking to the future as a laboratory not just in scientific progress, but in progress within our own community as well. That is why we are pleased to welcome Michael Childress to talk on Black Lives Matter. We feel we cannot fully gather as a community without recognizing the divisions and struggles many of our community members must daily face and without doing the work together toward a more inclusive and equitable experience for us all.

Festa Italiana

Benvenuti! This year’s Festa Italiana is going virtual as well! We will be hosting a live cooking class with “Al Dente pasta Workshop”. Join ahead of time to introduce yourself and greet new and old Fermilab friends. Stay after the class to show off your dish and to start dinner together. Virtual Festa Italiana will be on Friday, August 14th starting at 3:30 pm, see the event in indico for more details and RSVP here.

Information

Since the meeting is virtual there is no strict registration deadline but we encourage you to register early to help us with planning and to make sure you don’t miss any important announcements. The poster session will be in the last session (~12 pm CDT) on August 10th. Posters abstracts are due by August 1st at 11:59 pm CDT.

We strongly encourage early-career scientists to register and submit abstracts for the Poster Session. New for this year, non-scientists are also encouraged to participate in the poster session!

Additional highlights

Our scientific program includes many excellent and innovative talks from the intensity, energy, and cosmic frontiers, as well as divisions and projects across the laboratory. New for this year, we have added a few highly accessible “Introduction to…” talks intended to help everyone at the lab, from field expert to brand new, feel like they understand, appreciate, and are a part of the scientific mission of the laboratory. We think you’ll also enjoy the fun virtual reality environment of our Mozilla Hubs poster session, where your avatar can view innovative early career contributions which will go on to define the decade while mixing and mingling through live conversation with your coworkers and friends.

We have a number of exciting panels and workshops including:

• A panel on the Snowmass community planning process for the future of high energy physics.
• A Spotlight on the Community panel.
• A session on visas with an immigration lawyer and our Global Services office.
• Science communication training (RSVP required)
• A scientific job panel.
• A discussion on sustainability at Fermilab.
• A “satellite session” from the DOE.
• An “excursion” in the form of an expert tour of the Fermilab prairie.