Cindy Joe
Fermilab
Statement
I was very pleased to be nominated by a member of the community to run for the UEC this year. I care a lot about serving others and about doing my part to help improve the communities of which I am a part, and I hope to continue to do that as a UEC member.
I have been an employee at the lab since 2010. I started out as an accelerator operator, and this role was my first introduction to the user community. Despite the artificial separation of my role, I noticed the need for communication and working together with users, and I was never too busy to explain or aid.
I served on the Fermilab Employee Advisory Group from 2012 to 2015. This is very much like the UEC: a wide variety of dedicated members, all invested in taking and implementing feedback and working to make the community a better place. Very similarly, there are groups that focus on different areas of improvement and interest, and they enjoy a collaborative relationship with the directorate. While not at the founding of the EAG, I joined quite early in its inception, and together we all had to work out all of the difficult parts of compromise, communication, and implementation between a group of very passionate people. I found it a very good experience.
I was also an officer of the FSPA (Fermilab Student and Postdoc Association) from 2015-2016. I was nominated and then elected even though I am neither a graduate student nor a postdoc. I had gotten to know a lot of the FSPA members socially since I fit their demographic despite being a young operator. I showed up, I spoke up, and I helped out. I did my part to bring together the young employee community with the young users and I think we all benefitted from that.
From my past days as an accelerator operator to my current role as an experiment liaison, I have always cared about making sure people’s ideas got heard and they felt cared for. I have always believed that showing up, caring, and doing my best made a difference, and I would like to continue to do so as part of the UEC.