Aronson selected to take charge of particle physics at Brookhaven
Samuel Aronson has become the associate laboratory director for high energy and nuclear physics at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, as from 1 April. Previously the chair of the laboratory's Physics Department, Aronson succeeds Thomas Kirk, who has become a special assistant to the director.
In his new position, Aronson is responsible for overseeing a $190 million (€150 million) annual budget and about 750 employees. The directorate encompasses the Collider-Accelerator Department, the Physics Department, the Center for Accelerator Physics, the Instrumentation Division and the Superconducting Magnet Division. The operation of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) is currently the biggest project in the directorate, at which about 1000 scientists from around the world perform research. Other large projects include the management of the US participation in building the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider now under construction at CERN, and participation in the Rare Symmetry Violating Processes project proposed at Brookhaven.
Aronson joined Brookhaven in 1978. He became head of the PHENIX detector project in 1991 during the construction of RHIC, then became chair of the Physics Department in 2001. He faces some difficult challenges in maintaining the high calibre of Brookhaven's physics programme. He said, "We're seeing some of the worst budgets and budget forecasts in a very long time. The challenge is to maintain and advance a compelling science programme at Brookhaven Lab in the face of these decreased budgets."
UK names Peach and Blair as first directors of John Adams Institute
Ken Peach and Grahame Blair have been appointed the director and deputy director respectively of the UK's new John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science. The institute, based in Oxford University and Royal Holloway, University of London, is one of two university centres created in 2004 by the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC).
Together with the Cockcroft Institute, comprising the universities of Liverpool, Lancaster and Manchester, the John Adams Institute is participating in a £21 million (€31 million) programme of research and development in accelerator technology for future facilities, including an International Linear Collider and a neutrino factory.
Peach is currently director of the Particle Physics Department and director of the eScience Centre of the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils based at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. He is one of the leaders in the UK in emphasizing the importance of accelerator physics. Peach played a significant role in establishing the feasibility of a neutrino factory and in the recent approval by PPARC and the UK's Office of Science and Technology of the Muon Ionisation Cooling Experiment (MICE) project (CERN Courier May 2005 p5). He also chairs CERN's Scientific Policy Committee.
Blair is at present professor of physics at Royal Holloway, University of London. He has played a leading role in the revival of accelerator-physics research in particle physics in UK universities, and is the principal investigator of the LC-ABD research programme of PPARC, which aims to develop the beam-delivery system for the proposed International Linear Collider.