Every two years, SNOLAB hosts a "Users Meeting". This meeting is a chance for members of the SNOLAB community (not employed by SNOLAB) to engage with laboratory leadership, share new results, and build new collaborations. The meeting happened over two days on May 26-27 and was hosted at the laboratory site.
In addition to our chat about the Artemis II mission, Markus Schwabe (host, "Morning North") and I also got to talk about the SuperCDMS experiment at SNOLAB. It recently hit its operational temperature target ... just thousands of a degree above absolute zero, the coldest anything in the universe can be. We discuss what this means for the science operations of this experiment.
I recently had the pleasure of a conversation about the Artemis II mission on CBC Radio One Sudbury's "Morning North" program. Listen to host Markus Schwabe and me talk about the meaning and impact of this mission as humans take another step toward exploration beyond our home planet.
Listen here:
I am honoured to have recently presented a seminar at the Sanford Underground Research Facility's "Deeper Talks" series. The talk, entitled "Under the Canadian Shield: The SNOLAB Research Portfolio and 15-Year Plan". Join me on a tour of SNOLAB, a look at the current science program, and get a small taste of the community- and consultation-driven plan for where the lab could be in 15 years.
Watch the seminar:
The Springfield Telescope Makers Association hosts an annual "convention under the stars" at the Stellafane site in Springfield, VT, USA. This event draws astronomers, astronomy enthusiasts, and telescope makers from across North America and the world for three days of workshops, camping, and lectures. I was honoured to have been selected to offer the keynote lecture on the final night of the convention. The lecture is given at the Stellafane site in an outdoor amphitheatre, inviting the universe to light up the night as the speaker lights up the audience.
I was pleased to represent SNOLAB in an interview with CBC Radio One Sudbury reporter Erika Choristol for the March 21, 2025 “Up North” program. I discussed the newly funded SEEDLING (Science and Engineering Experiments at Depth – LearnING) at SNOLAB program. This program is led by the outstanding Education and Outreach team at the laboratory. I am pleased the Research Group will have a chance to support this research opportunity for young, aspiring discoverers in Canada.
I am proud, along with Dr. Erica Caden and Dr. Thomas Brunner, to have been a co-leader of the effort to organize and execute the 24th International Workshop on Next Generation Nucleon Decay and Neutrino Detectors (NNN'25). Preceding this was the first ever Extreme Nuclear Half-Lives: New Theories and Experiments (ENT1/2ENTE) workshop, whose focus was on new ideas to help propel the field to ultra-rare nuclear phenomena.
From the event website:
I am honoured to have been elected by the board of Principal Investigators of HALO to server as Co-Spokesperson of the experiment with my colleague, Dr. Clarence Virtue. Clarence has led HALO since its inception and I am excited to serve with him and to help guide this supernova early warning detector into the future.
Learn more about HALO here:
I was thrilled to deliver a public lecture to the community of Lead, South Dakota, at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) visitor centre. SURF is a sister laboratory to SNOLAB and home to the current LZ dark matter search experiment and the MAJORANA demonstrator neutrinoless double beta decay experiment. It is the future home of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), the largest particle detector that will ever have been constructed.
I presented a lecture entitled "Catch a Dying Star: Astronomy Deep Underground". You can watch it online here:
I am very proud to be listed as one of the over 13,000 laureates for the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. Unlike the Nobel Prize in Physics, the 13-year-old Breakthrough Prize can be awarded to more than 3 people.