Quark Matter Career Forum
By Jim Sowinski, Indiana University, Bloomington, RHIC & AGS UEC Chair
Students filing in for the Quark Matter Career Forum
Each spring the RHIC & AGS Users' Executive Committee (UEC) holds an Open Forum meeting. After interest was expressed by junior members for advice on careers we decided to put together a panel of faculty from academia and scientists from national labs for an open question Career Forum. We took the opportunity of the large gathering of scientists from around the world at Quark Matter in Knoxville to partner with the conference organizers for the event held on March 30, 2009, just after the start of the conference.
The evening started off with BSA and the conference using an effective method of attracting an audience: free food. After having their fill, over 150 young scientists joined us for the question and answer session. Jim Sowinski started the panel off by asking them to answer the question: "What is the best advice you can give someone trying to get a permanent job in your field?" The panel, consisting of Rusty Towell (Abilene Christian University), Helen Caines (Yale University), Barbara Jacak (SUNY-Stony Brook), Peter Steinberg (BNL), Urs Wiedemann (CERN) and Michael Wright (ORNL), took little time to dig right into the heart of the issue. Advice ranged from understanding what one wants personally from one's career, to the differences between research universities and undergraduate teaching institutions, to differences between basic and applied research at the national laboratories, and even to opportunities in industry. The audience was enthusiastic in their questions, which led them to explore their concerns more fully, delving into issues such as dual career couples, heavy work loads, changing research fields and the climate for women and minorities. The applause at the end and many comments made to the organizers afterwards made it clear that the audience was very appreciative of the panel's efforts and remarks.
The UEC would like to thank the panelists for their time and wisdom, as well as the organizers (particularly Vince Cianciolo) for partnering with us for this event. Based on the success of the forum we will be looking for other opportunities to provide our juniors with career advice.
The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National
Laboratory is a world-class scientific research facility primarily
funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. Hundreds
of physicists from around the world use RHIC to study what the
universe may have looked like in the first few moments after its
creation. What physicists learn from these collisions may help us
understand more about why the physical world works the way it does,
from the smallest subatomic particles, to the largest stars.