This year the APS Division of Particles & Fields (DPF) Meeting was hosted by the University of Pittsburgh in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University. The meeting was also combined with the annual Phenomenology Symposium (Pheno). This is the first year that the two conferences have been combined. The week-long event took place from May 13-17 and covered topics in particle physics theory and experiment and related issues in astrophysics and cosmology.
Tao Han, a distinguished professor of high energy physics in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences has been involved in the execution of the symposium for over a decade now. While he wasn’t the originator of the series, he has been engaged in the early stages of the event since he was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the 80s. He brought the series to Pitt in 2011.
Notable speakers have included Nobel Laureates in Physics Barry Barish, Adam Riess, and award-winning documentarian David E. Kaplan. On Wednesday, APS CEO Jon Bagger attended the event to speak to participants. However, many of the talks given at the conference are by graduate and post-doctoral students.
“DPF-Pheno 2024, organized jointly by Pitt and CMU, was a spectacular success, drawing nearly 600 participants from 15 countries and 42 US States. There was especially strong participation from early career scientists, including undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers.” Han said of the event.
A conference banquet was held on Thursday at the Carnegie Music Hall Foyer and DPF-Pheno 2024 concluded with the DOE PI meeting on Friday evening. While this year’s event has wrapped up, everyone is already looking forward to next year.