Luigi Marchese
ETH Zürich
Statement
It’s a great honor to be nominated for the Fermilab UEC. Fermilab is home for me. For one reason or another, I keep coming back to the lab at every stage of my academic journey. This is the place where I discovered particle physics as a summer intern at the CDF experiment in 2011. Later, I became resident in 2014-15, living in the village. I am now back as a Fellow of the Fermilab LPC Distinguished Researcher Program, with my university ETH Zürich.
The LPC is critical to the success of the US CMS group, especially for newcomers. The center organizes several Hands-On Tutorials, the Data Analysis School and shifts at the CMS Remote Operation Center, so that US students and PostDocs can learn from LPC experts and contribute to CMS data-taking operations from the US. The success of all these activities requires an accessible lab that welcomes members of the large US physics community. I hope to represent the interests of these users as a member of the UEC.
In my opinion, outreach, government relations and diversity matters are also very important for our community. During my years at CERN with the ATLAS collaboration, I served as a member of the ATLAS Early Career Scientist Board. For a more diverse and inclusive collaboration, I helped launch many initiatives to connect scientists and improve the fairness and transparency of some internal processes of the collaboration. Last year, I was part of the US delegation visiting the Congress. These are crucial years for our community since we have to promote and implement the P5 recommendations in a world where the geopolitics is changing rapidly. Communication with policymakers will be the key to achieving our scientific goals. The DC trip, organized by the UEC, is part of our mission to ensure our same opportunities to the next generation of scientists. After all, they will be the ones working at DUNE, FCC or the Muon Collider. For the same reasons, I think we also need to reach the younger generation (6-10) already now. During the pandemic, together with colleagues from LIGO and NASA, and the Walt Disney Company, I worked on a project to teach children about the latest discoveries in science and space exploration with Disney characters. It was fun to perform a muography of Uncle Scrooge’s money bin!
Fermilab is not only physics for me. In the past decade, I have been fully engaged in many UEC initiatives, from presenting my posters at the Users Meeting, to barbeques and summer parties. In 2015, I organized the popular Festa Italiana, the one with the Fiat 500 photo booth session.
I have seen the lab at very different times, from the Tevatron golden age to the pre-pandemic period to the present. I don’t think I would have pursued this career if I had not crossed paths with the lab as an undergraduate student. It’s important for new users to have the same experience. If elected, I would work on this to serve the user community.