Civilian Research and Development Foundation Awarded a $50,000 Grant to Support Construction of Low Pressure Gaseous Detectors (Release)
Civilian Research and Development Foundation Awarded a $50,000 Grant to Support Construction of Low Pressure Gaseous Detectors
Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) staff member, Howard Fenker, and Dr. Amour Margarian, of the Yerevan Physics Institute in Armenia, have been awarded a $50,000 grant from the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation for the Independent States of the Former Soviet Union (CRDF).
According to Fenker the majority of the money will go to support the construction of low pressure gaseous detectors at the Yerevan Institute in Armenia, which is working in collaboration with Jefferson Lab on this, and several other, experiments. The remaining money will go to Jefferson Lab in order to purchase materials and supplies, that can not be purchased in Armenia, for the scientists at the Yerevan Institute. The Yerevan Institute has sent some of their scientists to the United States to work along side Jefferson Lab scientists in the application of the various experiments. Margarian is one of the scientists that was sent to the U.S. to work at Jefferson Lab, and it was during Margarian's time in this country that he and Fenker teamed together to write the proposal for the CRDF Grant.
"What Jefferson Lab gets out of this is the efforts of the Yerevan scientists that we wouldn't have gotten other wise. They will do a lot more work at Jefferson Lab then they would have been able to do without this funding," commented Fenker.
The CRDF is a foundation that was created to offer scientists and engineers of the Former Soviet Union (FSU), who had been involved in making weapons of national defense, opportunities to redirect their talents towards more peaceful uses. Funding for the CRDF comes from the Department of Defense's Nunn-Lugar program to promote the demilitarization in the former Soviet Union, and from the National Science Foundation, who appointed the CRDF's Board of Directors. The CRDF's Cooperative Grants Program allows teams of FSU and U.S. scientists and engineers to apply jointly for financial support of experiments or projects in any area of civilian research and development. The level of funding may vary according to the needs of the projects, and is for a two year period.
More than 1,000 scientists from around the world use the superconducting accelerator for experiments to better understand the structure inside the nucleus of the atom. Radio frequency waves generate powerful electronic fields to accelerate a continuous beam of electrons to nearly the speed of light. The electron beam is delivered to three experimental halls for simultaneous research. In addition to the exploration of the nucleus, Jefferson Lab works to educate the next generation in science and to partner with industry. Jefferson Lab was constructed in 1987, having its first physics experiments in 1994.
The facility is managed by the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) for the U.S. Department of Energy.