FACES AND PLACES
The director-general of the International Fusion Energy Organization (ITER), Kaname Ikeda (right), and CERN director-general Robert Aymar signed a The CERN–ITER committee holding their first meeting in Cadarache in February. From left to right, cooperation agreement on 6 March. Arnaud Devred, ITER, Lucio Rossi and Philippe Lebrun, CERN, and Neil Mitchell, ITER. (Courtesy ITER.)
collaboration CERN and ITER begin cooperation
CERN and the International Fusion as finance, procurement, human resources the cooperation agreement held its first Organization (ITER) signed a first cooperation and informatics. meeting in Cadarache earlier this year, agreement at a meeting on 6 March. The Currently in its start-up phase at its on 14 February. This meeting marked the agreement was approved by the councils of Cadarache site, 70 km from Marseilles, ITER first step towards sharing the key common the two organizations last year, with the aim will focus its research on the scientific and technologies involved in the LHC and ITER, of sharing knowledge and information on technical feasibility of using fusion energy such as superconductivity, magnet coils and technologies. as a future source of power generation on cryogenics. The collaboration has already One of the main purposes of this Earth. In doing so, the organization will need assisted the ITER organization and domestic agreement is for CERN to give ITER, through to call on certain key technologies, such agencies in preparing technical specifications the provision of consultancy services, as superconductivity, cryogenics, control for the procurement arrangements for the the benefit of its experience in specific systems and data acquisition, which are toroidal field coils. These procurements are technologies developed for the LHC project, already in use at CERN. among the largest individual items for ITER as well as in administrative domains such The steering committee meeting for and work is due to start later this year.
appointments Neil takes the reins at JLab’s FEL division
George Neil has been named associate That was followed by three years as FEL chief director at the Thomas Jefferson National scientist for TRW at the Lawrence Livermore Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) with National Laboratory in California. Among responsibility for the free-electron laser (FEL) his many honours, Neil is a Fellow of the division. He has served as acting associate American Physical Society. He is also a director for FELs since March 2007 and as the co-winner of the 2000 International FEL prize programme’s deputy since 1996. and the 2005 R&D 100 award. Neil’s professional career has spanned Jefferson Lab’s FEL uses superconducting many areas, including plasma physics, radio-frequency technology to convert nuclear engineering, lasers and accelerator electron-beam energy into light, which is used technology development. He spent 10 years to conduct defence, industrial and academic at TRW Defence and Space Systems Group research. It is the world’s most powerful in Los Angeles, with responsibility for isotope tunable FEL and incorporates a unique separation sources and FEL development. energy-recovery design. George Neil. (Courtesy Jefferson Lab.)
26 CERN Courier May 2008
CCMayFaces.indd 26 9/4/08 14:24:27 FACES AND PLACES INTRODUCING
ULTRA LOW KEK invites nominations for TEMPERATURE director-general position CONTROLLER
The Japanese high-energy research physics, material sciences, biosciences, OPTIMIZED FOR organization, KEK, is calling for nominations accelerator physics and engineering. for the next director-general, whose term of The term of the new director-general He3 SYSTEMS offi ce will begin on 1 April 2009. will start one year before the next period KEK is an inter-university research of medium-term goals and plans (April institute corporation open to domestic and 2010 to March 2016), and therefore he/ MODEL 42 & 44 international researchers. It is comprised of she is anticipated to play a central role in the Institute of Particle and Nuclear Studies, establishing the plans in this period. One term the Institute of Materials Structure Science, in the position consists of three years, which the Accelerator Laboratory, and the Applied can be extended up to nine years. Research Laboratory. The organization pursues ● The deadline for nominations is 10 June a wide range of research activities based on 2008. For more information, see www.kek.jp/ accelerators, including particle and nuclear intra-e/press/2008/newdg.html. s 4EMPERATURE RANGE DOWN CELEBRATION TO M+ Shirokov reaches his 80th birthday s #OMPLETE SOLUTION FOR (E REFRIGERATORS On 3 March, the Russian physicist Dmitri Shirkov celebrated his 80th birthday. Shirkov s &OUR