November 10, 2009Earlier last week, the BaBar Collaboration met at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory for its autumn meeting. Over four days, we discussed a great variety of physics (during over 100 parallel session talks), learned about the process of preserving the BaBar data for future researchers, and even celebrated our 400th published paper. In addition to [...]
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September 22, 2009I am pleased to announce my very first search for a post-doctoral researcher. The links to the official advertisement are at the bottom of this announcement [1], and the text of the advertisement is reproduced here. As a new faculty member at SMU, and as a new member of the established SMU ATLAS group, this [...]
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September 20, 2009I’ve been thinking a lot about cosmology. This is primarily because Jodi is teaching an elective course for undergraduates this semester. I’ve been sitting in on her lectures and doing the homework so that I can learn more about the subject. What’s been great about it is that I can connect cosmology directly to the [...]
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September 16, 2009In the spring of 2008, just months after the last electron-positron collisions at PEP-II, the BaBar collaboration announced discovery of the long-sought ground-state of bottomonium. The evidence seemed overwhelming – a “big peak” at 9389 MeV/c^2 in the mass spectrum recoiling against a photon. The strategy was not new; the idea of looking for the [...]
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September 10, 2009Each year, the SLAC Users Organization (SLUO) hosts its annual meeting for users. For as long as I’ve been involved, the meeting is themed. This year, the theme of the meeting is SLAC science, from the depths to the heavens. SLAC users now represent research programs located deep underground, developing and using new accelerators here [...]
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September 3, 2009Mt. Wilson is covered in smoke. The UCLA webcam, mounted on a tower near the observatory, snaps one last image around 1:30 pm [1]. According to the website, they believe communication has been lost due to back fire destroying the internet connection to the observatory. The observatory was said to be out of harm’s way [...]
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September 3, 2009Earlier this week, I submitted my first grant proposal to a federal funding agency. The Department of Energy established an “Early Career Award” program this year using $25 million in ARRA (Stimulus Plan) money. The money was intended to provide a generous budget for 5 years to each of 30-40 young researchers (no more than [...]
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August 7, 2009I am in the process of becoming a faculty member at Southern Methodist University. Well, to be fair, I am a faculty member; that was a digital title change that happened on Aug. 1. What I mean is that I am in the process of settling into faculty life at SMU. This involved a lot [...]
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May 29, 2009Next week (June 2-6), I will be at CERN for the first time in many years (and to kickoff my many visits to come!). I am attending the ATLAS Collaboration Physics Week, a four-day event centering on ATLAS physics analysis. I am excited to be heading to the new Mecca of particle physics, the new [...]
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April 24, 2009This year has been a remarkable one in many respects. A Nobel-prize-winning physicist heading the Department of Energy, a physicist acting as science advisor to the President – have there been as many physicist so sought after for science policy leadership since just after World War II?
What has driven physics, and all other sciences, to [...]
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Steve Sekula is an Assistant Professor of Experimental Particle Physics at Southern Methodist University. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2004, and currently works on the BaBar Experiment at SLAC and the ATLAS Experiment at CERN.
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