By Jutta Escher, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
The FRIB Theory Alliance (FRIB-TA) just completed the first year of activities in the renewed five-year cycle of funding. Filomena Nunes (MSU) is continuing as the managing director of the grant. FRIB-TA is administratively supported by Gillian Olson, and the executive board oversees project execution and provides coordination.
Despite the many restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, FRIB-TA continued its core initiatives and found innovative new ways to engage the science community:
Bridge faculty members Saori Pastore and Maria Piarulli at Washington University in St. Louis, and Sebastian Koenig at North Carolina State University, continue their research, teaching, and outreach. Theory Fellow Kevin Fossez will join Florida State University as a new bridge faculty member. FRIB-TA congratulates Kevin Fossez on advancing into a faculty position and Maria Piarulli for earning a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science Early Career Award.
Chloë Hebborn and Christian Drischler started their appointments as theory fellows at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Michigan State University, respectively, and a new fellow, Xilin Zhang, will be starting at MSU later this summer.
In collaboration with the FRIB Users Organization, FRIB-TA proposed the new annual FRIB Achievement Award for Early Career Researchers, designated to recognize outstanding original contributions to the field of nuclear physics through work at or relating to FRIB, performed by scientists early in their careers. The inaugural awards for theory and experiment will be presented at the upcoming Low-Energy Community Meeting.
The traditional summer schools and topical programs had to be curtailed due to the pandemic. The 2020 summer school, “Dense Matter in Astrophysics,” was held online, and the 2021 summer school, “A practical walk through formal scattering theory,” will follow a similar format. Two topical programs are planned for fall 2021/spring 2022.
FRIB-TA continues to explore new ways to connect to experimentalists and to the broader community. A list of theorists ready to collaborate with experimentalists was made available on the website ahead of the FRIB PAC1 proposal due date. During summer and fall 2020, the FRIB-TA Dialogues series featured panelists and discussion time in a virtual environment, promoted dialogues among the broader FRIB community across its science programs, and generated much interest.
With the move to a five-year funding cycle, FRIB-TA made a few structural changes. After a vote by the membership, the executive board moved to be governed by a director line, with Jutta Escher (LLNL) serving as the new director, and Jorge Piekarewicz (Florida State University) moving to the past director position. In January 2021, Daniel Phillips (Ohio University) became director elect. Also, a board position was created for a member from a non-U.S. organization. At the beginning of June 2021, three new executive board members started their terms: Saori Pastore (Washington University in St. Louis), Calvin Johnson (San Diegeo State University), and Sonia Bacca (Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, Germany).
FRIB-TA thanks those members who completed their terms: Dean Lee (Michigan State University) and Thomas Papenbrock (University of Tennessee at Knoxville and Oak Ridge National Laboratory). New in this funding cycle is also the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee, which is focused on ensuring that FRIB-TA provides a safe, inclusive, and equitable environment to all members of our community.
