The URA is the University Research Association and for what our group most importantly cares about is responsible to run Fermilab. On its web sites it explains that “URA membership is comprised of more than 90 leading research-oriented universities in North America, Europe, and Japan. Membership enables these institutions to collaborate with one another on significant research initiatives, share facilities and resources, and team up with partner laboratories.”
For this years annual meeting I was asked to be the ‘proxy’ for the vice president of research from MIT (Maria Zuber) and luckily decided to dress up properly, shaved, with flat ironed shirt and a tie, so I would not make a fool out of myself. And low and behold, there was not a single male without a tie and jacket. People in DC love to wear the ‘uniform’. The trip started early in the morning (6am flight) and I was back in the evening. The discussion was all very high level and it was interesting to see how politics and science meets. Congressman Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL) my former colleague from CDF gave an engaging speech that was peppered with his personal and often funny experiences working as a scientist.
One notable difference between politicians and scientists at the meeting became very clear. Politicians do not use slides… something that in a meeting at the experiment is unheard of. Maybe it is not a bad habit, because powerpoint can put you to sleep quickly, on the other hand Karsten Heeger and Hitoshi Murayama (leaders of the P5 panel) and Lia Merminga (FNAL director) had a lot of beautiful pictures that helped to explain what they were talking about. We, as human beings, are able to absorb so much information when simply looking at picture.
The conclusion from the meeting was that P5 had an excellent report both bold and cautious while Fermilab was moving along with the massive Dune project. Very positive feedback and the URA also seemingly doing the right thing. Money might be a little tighter next year, but otherwise nothing that was too controversial.
I met some old colleagues from CDF and CMS like Monica d’Onofrio and Joe Incandela and had some interesting conversations. It looks like the issues at our universities are quite similar, which is reassuring.
Finally after a relatively pleasant day with excellent, healthy food I drove off to the airport (Reagan national). Here, I made one important discovery that made my day, DC’s Dunkins’ still carries French Crullers which have fallen out of grace in the Boston area. Of course I had to double up.