The Data Analysis School for members of the CMS experiment ‘CMSDAS’ is held yearly and this year, 2026, was no exception. The school was held at Fermilab’s LHC Physics Center and provided intensive hands-on training for new researchers on CMS experiment software and physics tools. Highlights included an 80% hands-on approach progressing to complex physics measurements and mentorship from experts. The CMSDAS also advertized a future specialized hackathon focused on AI and machine learning, February 2-6 at the LPC, which will mostly be based on our fast developing Archi framework.
The school started with a warm welcome by Bonnie Fleming, no less, the Fermilab Chief Research Officer, followed by Anadi Canepa the ‘reigning’ CMS spokesperson, also a Fermilab physicist, and Princeton’s Isobel Ojalvo the co-convener of the LHC Physics Center at Fermilab. The first two days served as an initiation with plenary sessions in the mornings and first simple real life exercises with the basic tools of the trade for any type of analysis in the afternoons. The plenary introductions ranged from Big Picture Physics Overview by Paddy Fox to Accelerator Physics by Jeff Eldred, to CMS Detector and Upgrade by Matteo Cremonesi and more technical talks on computing and physics analysis process. Myself, I contributed the CMS Overview and Outlook to inspire our mostly new and young CMS physicists that participated actively in this memorable school.
Basic tools for analysis range from object definitions, trigger, efficiencies, statistical tools, but also include the documentation and the general analysis process in CMS which requires to follow a complex review process.
Best view of the still fresh participants
In the remaining days from Wednesday to Friday participants chose their analysis from a given set of example analyses and emulated real physicists life, compactified into one week, by performing the analysis. This not only implies writing the code and running it but also included presentations and full documentation and a mock analysis approval and review. The week also had a number of social events including a Karaoke and a Physics Jeopardy like competition.
The event turned out to be a full success, students learning lessons for their time during the PhD and making essential connections with their peers and some of the more senior members of the CMS collaboration. I can recommend the event highly to any student starting or even being already involved in CMS for a while.
On an unusual note: During the week there were two active Fermilab directors visiting the CMSDAS, an incident which will not happen again, because Young-Kee Kim visited on Monday when she finished her term, while Norbert Holtkamp took the reigns of the lab on Tuesday and promptly visited the school on the last day.
It should be pointed out that the Fermilab organizational crew for these events like the CMSDAS are a very significant part in the smooth running. Organizational and technical help, food and entertainment were flawlessly lined up to make this event a pure pleasure to be a part of. Thank you all!
- more photos of the event can be found here.