Odds and Ends
December 22, 2009
Over the past two weeks, “Montage” has picked up some red stars on my white board. The red stars mean that I am getting behind on something and that it deserves some attention. I had ambitions that I would be able to produce a Montage article every two to three weeks. Thus far, I am a tad short. This is number 10 for 2009 and number 15 overall.
So, where are we? The fall of the year has been incredibly busy from my point of view. A partial list of events is given below, but I am sure that each of you could replace 50 percent of the items with things that you personally consider more prominent.
Table of events: Fall 2009
| Four-year Theory Review | Sept. | 17 |
| 12 GeV Lehman Review | Sept. | 22-24 |
| TEDF Lehman Review | Sept. | 29 |
| 25th Anniversary | Sept. | 29 |
| JSA Board Meeting | Sept. | 30 |
| House Science and Technology Testimony | Oct. | 01 |
| All Hands Meeting | Oct. | 09 |
| Jefferson Lab Users Meeting, Hawaii | Oct. | 15 |
| Director Brinkman visit | Oct. | 28 |
| EIC AC at Jefferson Lab | Nov. | 02,3 |
| Invitation from Basic Energy Sciences submit JLAMP Prop | Nov. | 06 |
| Women in Science and Technology Workshop | Nov. | 16,17 |
| Presentation of Jefferson Lab staffing plan through 2016 | Nov. | 24 |
| Strategic Planning Jamboree | Dec. | 01 |
| JSA Science Council | Dec. | 04 |
| Off. of Sci. (Brinkman ,Dehmer, Malosh) 2009 Performance | Dec. | 07 |
| Undersecretary Koonin visit (postponed) | Dec. | 14 |
| JSA Operations Committee Meetings | Dec. | 18 |
Nevertheless, there are a number of events that we would all agree are important; the 25th Anniversary comes to mind. And had it not been for the fog closing down Norfolk airport earlier this month, we would have had nearly a clean sweep of the DOE upper management in 2009 with visits from Secretary Chu, Deputy Secretary Poneman, Undersecretary Koonin and Director of the Office of Science Brinkman.
From the list above, you also will notice that staffing plans were presented to the Office of Nuclear Physics on Nov. 24. This was done in response to one of the recommendations made at the Science and Technology Review in the summer. We tried to lay out the increases in staff that will be needed to support the 12 GeV era with its extra experimental hall and a more complicated CEBAF. Staffing concerns also were raised during the DOE Review of the 12 GeV Project in September. Of course, staffing issues involve more than just counting numbers of people deployed; some have to do with the quality of individuals hired to meet our needs, and during the course of the year we made some excellent and exciting additions to our staff.
Last week, the performance reports for the Office of Science laboratories were released. Again, Jefferson Lab did very well. Your efforts paid off, and you are to be commended and thanked. As a result, we expect to receive an extension of the Jefferson Science Associates contract to operate the laboratory. These extensions give us a five-year contract from the beginning of the current financial year and are designed to continue up to a maximum of 20 years in the current scheme.
As we have emphasized in several different circumstances over the past year or more, we are trying to run a full program of 6 GeV physics. This fall has seen the completion of installation of a hypernuclear experiment in Hall C, which was then run successfully. Two parity violation experiments, HAPPEX III and PV-DIS have been completed in Hall A. In Hall B, deep virtual compton scattering and spectroscopy have been featured in the two experiments completed. Finally, the preparation and installation of the QWeak experiment has started. This experiment has the goal of measuring with high precision, the weak charge of the proton.
So, these are a few odds and ends that tie the year together. For me, 2009 has been a very exciting time. It also has been a very exciting time for the laboratory as an entity, and I hope that it has also been exciting for you as individuals. We look forward to 2010.
