Jefferson Lab participates in University of New Hampshire event emphasizing national lab partnerships
NEWPORT NEWS, VA – When ongoing travel restrictions made in-person attendance difficult for the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility leadership team and others, the planners for the New England National Lab Day got creative. The University of New Hampshire hosted the event virtually by setting up a series of webinar sessions focused on research areas where the university has partnered with national labs.
“While we had planned for an in-person National Lab Day event this year,” said Mark Milutinovich, senior director of the Research and Large Center Development at UNH, “We were excited to have this opportunity to showcase not only our own partnerships, but others at the national labs that advance nuclear physics.”
The virtual “Advancing Nuclear Physics through National Lab Partnerships” webinar was held on Jan. 21, and the day’s agenda highlighted the long and beneficial research relationship between UNH and Jefferson Lab and other strong partnerships UNH has built with the national labs.
The webinar especially highlighted the critical role of partnerships in support of nuclear physics research. It was kicked off by Dr. Tim Hallman, DOE’s associate director for Nuclear Physics of the Office of Science, with an overview of DOE Nuclear Physics facilities, programs and priorities. The respective directors of Jefferson Lab and DOE’s Brookhaven National Lab, Stuart Henderson and Doon Gibbs, welcomed participants on behalf of the national lab system and discussed the importance of collaboration and partnerships.
The themes of partnership and collaboration carried through the entire agenda. Cynthia Keppel, Jefferson Lab’s Halls A & C leader, spoke about the connections that nuclear physics provides between science and society.
Others looked to the future. A joint presentation by Abhay Deshpande, a professor at Stony Brook University and director of the Center for Frontiers in Nuclear Science and EIC Science at Brookhaven and Bob McKeown, Jefferson Lab deputy director for science, highlighted the exciting program planned for the Electron-Ion Collider being built at Brookhaven with strong support from and in collaboration with Jefferson Lab.
The webinar concluded with a panel discussion focused on current partnerships in nuclear physics at several DOE national labs, including Karl Slifer, UNH (facilitator), Nathaly Santiesteban from MIT/Jefferson Lab, Jaideep Singh from Michigan State University/Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, Zein-Eddine Meziani from Argonne National Laboratory and Andre Walker-Loud from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.
“It was great to spend time learning more about the critical role that partnerships play in nuclear physics research,” said Stuart Henderson. “What we are trying to do really requires teams of all types to come together to do the sort of groundbreaking research that we try to do at all of our facilities and labs.”
The event was recorded and may be viewed in its entirety at: https://media.unh.edu/media/1_n1dgxvdj
Links to the slide presentations can be found at: https://unh.box.com/s/u69pog05rsaea6jwu60h52ac6ncdh5vu
Other webinars in the series, which included Transformative Manufacturing, Career-Building Opportunities at DOE National Labs, and Advancing Understanding of Terrestrial-Aquatic and Marine Interfaces with DOE National Labs can be accessed at: https://www.unh.edu/research/about/national-lab-day-webinar-series
Contact: Deborah Dowd, Jefferson Lab Communications Office, dowd@jlab.org