A Message from Stanislaus Wong

information from the Users’ Executive Committee

Stanislaus Wong

Stanislaus Wong

Dear fellow CFN users:

On behalf of the CFN Users’ Executive Committee (UEC), I am very pleased to update you on recent happenings since the Annual NSLS-II & CFN Joint Users’ Meeting in May.

Announcements

  • We welcomed Don DiMarzio of Northrup Grumman, in addition to Balaji Raghothamachar and Jan Folkson, both of Stony Brook University, as newly elected members of the UEC. Don was also elected UEC Vice Chair, and Joe Garlow of Stony Brook University was elected Secretary. Congratulations to everyone!
  • Many UEC members attended the DOE Triennial Review meeting of the CFN that was held from August 23 through 25, during which several users gave interesting and informative “science” talks. On the first day, many of us also participated in the users-only luncheon and in the afternoon poster session. Throughout the course of the meeting, we stressed the significance of CFN resources for our experiments and highlighted the importance of productive, transparent, and collaborative interactions with the staff. We would like to continue to nurture and build upon this foundation for the coming years, especially with respect to the acquisition and updating of key instrumentation.

Synergy is especially crucial, given the number of new beamlines that are coming on line at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II). CFN scientists are actively involved either in the commissioning or operation of many of these beamlines. In fact, several of us emphasized the need for a clear connection between CFN and NSLS-II for user proposals. For example, we should not necessarily be required to complete a separate and distinctive user proposal to use synchrotron characterization for the same projects we are already doing at the CFN. In the future, it would be ideal if all of the relevant beamlines could be listed as viable resource options on the CFN proposal website.

Meeting Updates

  • Past UEC Chair Nathalie Bouet and I attended the Brookhaven Lab UEC representatives’ meeting with Bob Lincoln from Human Resources on July 29. We learned that the on-site Child Development Center will continue to be run by Bright Horizons into the spring of next year. Its financial model for future operations, however, is very much up in the air at the moment, as the Lab is continuing to subsidize the facility. With regard to meal options, Metz is hiring a new on-site manager and will soon provide an updated and revised menu, which will eventually include sushi. New housing is expected to be provided as part of Discovery Park, which will likely replace the current on-site dorm rooms when the facility is eventually fully constructed.
  • Nathalie and I also attended a UEC representatives’ meeting with Bob Tribble, Deputy Director for Science & Technology, on October 13. We were informed about the recent Diversity Workshop held at the Lab in conjunction with the Lab Directors’ meeting in September. The CFN UEC hopes to be able to provide some user data to complement current Lab diversity statistics. Another key point of interest to the users in this era of tight budgets is that the Lab management would like users to view CFN, NSLS-II, and the Interdisciplinary Sciences Building (ISB) as an efficient, effective, and integrated “one-stop” shop with complementary key resources for solving all of their scientific needs. 
  • I participated in a Guest, User, and Visitor Center (GUV) Center Steering Committee meeting on October 17 for UEC chairs. A point of significance to the users is that the Lab has (i) formalized how guests on F-1 visas are being processed while working at the CFN, and (ii) begun work on the Access 2020 project, which will eventually provide a combined infrastructure/operations blueprint for how the Lab will interact with and accommodate users in the future. One of the first items on the agenda was the planning of the Visitors’ Center in the Science User Support Center building at Discovery Park.

Summary

The UEC looks forward to hearing from you on any of these issues, and sincerely hopes you can join us in our efforts to improve the user experience at CFN. We are constantly looking for additional members, especially from industry, to be active participants in the UEC. We wish you a productive cycle at the facility.

—Stanislaus S. Wong
2016–17 CFN UEC Chair (chair@cfnuec.org)

2016-6740  |  INT/EXT  |  Newsroom