CERN-Fermilab summer school is smash hit

A new joint CERN-Fermilab summer school is proving more popular than the organizers ever imagined.


Interest in the first CERN-Fermilab Hadron Collider Physics Summer School, to be held at Fermilab on 9-18 August, has proved far greater than anyone anticipated, with 300 applications for the planned 100 places. In response, the Organizing Committee, led by Fermilab's Jeffrey Appel and Bogdan Dobrescu, has had to increase the class size to nearly 150 participants.

'The success of this initiative, with an unexpectedly large number of applications, shows both the great anticipation that exists in the world for the start up of the LHC, and the need for greater educational support to enable the hundreds of young researchers to get ready for a full and prompt exploitation of the LHC data,' explains CERN's Michelangelo Mangano, who is a member of the International Advisory Committee (IAC) for the school. 'Fulfilling the expectations of the students will be a great challenge, which we are all eager to tackle.' Fabiola Gianotti, Olivier Schneider and Paris Sphicas also represent CERN on the IAC.

The larger number of places will require a reorganization of some of the academic schedule, budgets, and plans for social events, but says Appel 'In spite of this increase in size, we are committed to maintaining a school atmosphere'. The students accepted are from universities and laboratories in more than 20 countries, and about half of them are from US institutions.

Preparations for the second school, which CERN will host in 2007 shortly before the LHC is turned on, are already underway. 'CERN is fully committed to this project,' says CERN's Chief Scientific Officer, Jos Engelen. 'In 2007 the CERN-FNAL Hadron Collider Physics school at CERN will provide Europe with a valuable complement to the well established CERN-JINR school, addressing the most advanced PhD students and young postdoctoral researchers engaged in the commissioning and analysis of the first LHC data.'