# Presentation: 080350

## RHIC/AGS Users Open Forum

- Rene Bellwied (Wayne State University)
- UEC Chair
- A short introduction to the UEC
- Accomplishments of the past year (Thanks John !)
- Steve Vigdor, the new Associate Lab Director (ALD)

## Present UEC membership

## Ex-Officio Members

**Doon Gibbs**
**Steve Vigdor**

## Present Users Center Staff

- plus the users center staff is expanding as we speak...

## The New Users Center

- All under one roof: housing, badges, users center, bank, rental car (soon to come)
- Online Training, Guest-ID’s
- RHIC News Online (biweekly)
- http://www.bnl.gov/rhic/news/
- Contact
- _[http://www.bnl.gov/userscenter](http://www.bnl.gov/userscenter)_
- E-mail: _[userscenter@bnl.gov](mailto:userscenter@bnl.gov)_
- Phone: 631-344-3333

## The Four UEC Working Groups

## UEC Working Group Members

## UEC candidates – this year

- Chair
- Abhay Deshpande (Stony Brook)
- Hank Crawford (Berkeley)
- Student/Postdoc Members
- Mike McCumber (Stony Brook)
- Christine Nattrass (Yale)
- Astrid Morreale (UC Riverside)
- Dylan Thein (UT Austin)
- Members
- Manuel Calderon (UC Davis)
- Claude Pruneau (Wayne State University)
- Carla Vale (BNL)
- Brant Johnson (BNL)
- Justin Frantz (Stony Brook)
- Renee Fatemi (MIT)

## The past year

- This was a very busy year with a strong variety of issues in all four sub working groups of the UEC.
- The outgoing chair, John Hill, did a marvelous job in coordinating and expediting all the issues we had to deal with. Thanks John !
- We were involved in many topics, some were openly discussed (cyber security, continuing resolution, quality of life issues, NUFO), some required some more ‘behind the scenes’ work (gender bias issues, high-energy density initiative, dealing with new regulations on site).
- So the UEC was very busy, and in the following you’ll see a short summary of most sub working group activities.

## Summary of past year (SAS)

- New Cyber Security Regulations
- Organized cyber security survey
- New Foreign National Regulations
- Trying to understand issues on a case by case basis
- BNL now has a Homeland Security Office and a Counter-Intelligence Unit (CIU)
- Represent users in their interactions with HSO and CIU

## Summary of past year (FPP)

- Involvement in Continuing Resolution and New Budget discussions
- Letter writing campaigns together with APS
- Involvement in stopping the HED initiative
- In concert with APS
- Congressional Visits Day
- Involvement in NUFO
- Planning Three-Chair Visits in the Fall
- Talk to your local Congress people

## Summary of past year (MCO)

- Monthly UEC meetings
- Issues: FPP, QOL, SAS
- Quarterly Open Forum Meetings
- Speakers: Mike Holland (Washington), Steve Pierson (APS), Tom Ludlam, Tom Schlagel, John Amabile, Randy Biegelman
- Annual Users Meeting
- Workshops a good idea ?, Format ?, Timing ?

## Summary of past year (QOL)

- The BNL Café
- See next page
- Lighting for the RHIC ring street
- In the middle of $4 Million priority list for lighting improvements for this fiscal year, highest priority for next fiscal year
- New ASAP (Assoc. of Students & Postdocs) lounge
- Open house yesterday, 4 p.m., close to gym, Bldg.462
- Kitchen improvements for Dormitories
- Moving ahead
- The gym floor project
- Almost done (end of June), ‘wet floor slip issue’
- RHIC online newsletter (_[http://www.bnl.gov/rhic/news](http://www.bnl.gov/rhic/news)_)
- John Haggerty - coordinator
- Plans for next year: housing !! Revive 3rd party idea

## The café

- Located in the lobby of the users building, right in front
- of the users center.
- Funding is forthcoming (from BSA, estimate around 40 K,
- likely early next fiscal year).
- After that it takes about five weeks to complete procedures

## National User Facility Organization (NUFO)

- _[http://www.bnl.gov/nufo](http://www.bnl.gov/nufo)_
- _[http://www.nufo.org](http://www.nufo.org/)_
- Advocate user facilities funded by Office of Science and NSF
- Letter writing campaigns in support of funding increases.
- Visit local Congress people in district and in Washington with diverse group of local scientists (faculty/students from NP, HEP, material science, nanotechnology, chemistry etc.)

## Personal comments on the future

- Major National Labs (LBNL, BNL) are trying to ‘diversify’, i.e. less emphasis on single large facility (RHIC), more diverse program (material science, nano center, light source etc.).
- Major push from Office of Science, mostly for renewable energy (ARPA-E, BP deal). But fundamental research should benefit as well. 25% increase in the next years (ACI or Innovations Agenda)
- We are a major facility users group with strong future plans (RHIC-II, eRHIC)
- We need to stay competitive and we need to start comparing ourselves to other users groups at BNL and at other national labs. There are common goals (see NUFO)
- But we also need to understand our own goals better (eRHIC ?, LRP ?) and communicate well with the lab management, the DoE, NSF, and the lawmakers in Washington.
- These are interesting times.
- More on these issues from Steve Vigdor, the new ALD.