Dear Colleagues,
We are pleased to announce that LBNL has kindly agreed to host our Annual US LHC Users Association Meeting Wednesday - Friday November 2-4. There will be an arrival reception and Executive Committee meeting in the late afternoon and early evening of Wednesday November 2, followed by the main sessions on Thursday and Friday.
We are looking forward to an exciting meeting, especially with the exceptional performance of the LHC and the experiments, exploring a new energy range with massive datasets, giving us a great range of new results from Run2 in 2016. We will hear of the latest results and potentially new discoveries as our search for beyond the Standard Model continues, as well as the latest results on Higgs boson properties and other precision Standard Model results, together with the latest results and discoveries in heavy flavor and heavy ion physics. With the greatly expanded reach at 13 TeV we can anticipate new knowledge and perhaps some surprises in one or more of these physics sectors by November.
Our annual meeting will provide an excellent opportunity for the members of our community, especially the younger members, to come and present and discuss their work. We have therefore reserved as much time as possible for student talks during the meeting. This will be complemented by status and physics highlight and upgrade talks from the LHC experiments, the LHC accelerator team, and LARP, as well as presentations and discussion of US LUA activities and plans to inform and assist our community, along with the view from Washington by representatives of the DOE and NSF.
We will review and discuss this year's trip to Washington together with Fermilab UEC and SLUO. The P5 Report setting directions and priorities for our field has been a significant milestone that has been warmly received in Washington. Our reception in Congressional offices, where we have highlighted the strength and excitement of our science in all areas of HEP as well as the balance between our domestic and international programs, and the bright prospects for future discoveries, has been very positive. We will also review the impact and progress in implementing the plans outlined in the Report in an international context, the recent funding trend and outlook, and our community's ongoing activities targeting increased funding for our field in FY2017 and beyond.
Following our tradition, there will be several "Lightning Round" sessions, organized by members of the Executive Committee, which are a highlight of the meeting. Each of the lightning talks, and the longer student and postdoc talks, will be judged by a panel. The winners of the competition will be invited to join us on the HEP trip to Congress, the agencies and executive offices in Washington DC in the Spring of 2017. The 2016 visit was very interesting, and it had a positive impact, due in no small measure to the enthusiastic presence of many younger members of our field who have proven to be remarkable communicators. We are looking forward to an equally successful visit to DC next Spring.
Another highlight is a Careers session, where we can learn of and discuss the opportunities and experiences exemplified by members of our field who have moved into diverse areas of science and technology, some in academia and some in industry.
A meeting agenda will follow very soon. We will set up a website where you can register for the meeting, along with links to information on travel and accommodations, and where speakers can later upload their talks.
- The Meeting Fee is $ 150 ($ 75 for students). You will be able to pay online with a credit card at this page: hep.caltech.edu/uslua/
- There will be a conference dinner, organized separately, at a nearby restaurant in Berkeley.
We look forward to seeing many of you at LBNL in November. Plan to attend yourself and to encourage members of your group, and other colleagues to attend, which will greatly assist our Association's work in supporting the US LHC community. Because November is a busy time in Berkeley, we recommend that you make your flight and hotel reservations early, as soon as we open registration.
On behalf of US LUA, we'd like to thank LBNL and the Physics Division in particular for hosting our annual meeting, and for its strong support of US LUA and its work over the years together with Fermilab, Argonne, BNL, and SLAC. Special thanks to Physics Division Director Natalie Roe, and to colleagues Ian Hinchliffe, Michael Barnett and GianLuca Sabbi for the local organization and for making this possible.
I am enclosing a brochure explaining some of our activities. Please also visit www.uslua.org.
Best regards
Harvey Newman
For the US LUA Executive Committee
