Oddone Named to Head Fermilab

Physicist Pier Oddone has been named as the next director of Fermilab and will take the post on 1 July 2005. Oddone, currently deputy director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), will succeed physicist Michael Witherell, who announced in October 2003 that he planned to step down next July.

“I am delighted to announce the appointment,” said Frederick Bernthal, president of the Universities Research Association, a consortium of 90 research universities that operates Fermilab in Batavia, Illlinois. Oddone’s “stature as a distinguished particle physicist, his experience in the scientific operation of another great national laboratory, and his leadership abilities make him extremely well suited to keep Fermilab at the forefront of scientific excellence and to guide the lab during the critical years ahead.”

Oddone, 60, a native of Peru, is the recipient of the American Physical Society’s 2005 Panofsky Prize for inventing the Asymmetric B-Factory. His undergraduate degree is from MIT and he received his PhD in physics from Princeton University. He was director of LBNL from 1987 to 1991, and has been deputy director of scientific programs there since 1989. He was selected for the Fermilab directorship after a five-month search by a 19-member committee headed by physicist Neal Lane of Rice University in Houston, Texas.

Oddone told a meeting of the Fermilab staff that his “grand ambition” for the lab is that it become the site of the International Linear Collider (ILC). The proposed collider would create high-energy particle collisions between electrons and positrons and would provide a tool for addressing questions about dark matter, dark energy, extra dimensions, and the fundamental nature of matter.

“The laboratory is poised for a future that includes the premier experiment in flavor physics, potentially the premier program in neutrino physics, and strong participation in the LHC [Large Hadron Collider at CERN],” Oddone said in a written message to the Fermilab staff. “If our efforts are successful, our future may also include a new global facility [the ILC] at the energy frontier to complement the Large Hadron Collider.”

Witherell said that “years of effort building and improving accelerators and detectors have laid the foundation” for a rich scientific harvest at Fermilab. “We are very fortunate that Pier will be leading Fermilab through the important and difficult tasks ahead.” One of the difficulties Oddone faces is the flat funding for Fermilab. In fiscal year 2005 the lab received about $291 million, a 1.2% increase over last year and less than the lab requested.

Witherell is returning to the University of California, Santa Barbara, to become vice chancellor for research.