Greetings,

Well, the semester is whizzing by as quickly as the Fall breeze.

If you’re just joining us, welcome to the McDonald Institute astroparticle physics research network! At the McDonald Institute, we are committed to providing all members of the research community with resources and programming that foster continued growth and development as innovative, interdisciplinary, and international leaders and collaborators. There are many new people this time of year, so please consider sharing this newsletter or the McDonald Institute newsletter signup link. 

On stage from left to right: Nancy Ross, Alejandro Adem, Patrick Deane, Art McDonald, Tony Noble, Julia Brachman, Zoe Brisson-Tsavoussis, Kate Wilson, John Burge, Michael Fraser. photo credit: Eric Brousseau

On Oct. 17, Queen’s University marked the 10th anniversary of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics co-awarded to Dr. Art McDonald for the discovery of neutrino oscillation at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO). The event featured a special talk by Art reflecting on both the proliferation of global neutrino research following the oscillation detection work led by himself at SNO and Dr. Takaaki Kajita at Super-Kamiokande, as well as the rapid expansion of astroparticle physics work in dark matter, multi-messenger astronomy, BSM physics theory and the suite of new detector technologies being adopted in pursuit of new experimental results.

NSERC President Alejandro Adem also spoke at the event that also acknowledged the $45.5 million support announced by the federal government in 2024 to support McDonald Institute work. McDonald Institute Director Tony Noble spoke to the longstanding vision of multiple government agencies in building Canada’s astroparticle physics ecosystem since the 1980’s. Students Julia Brachman and Zoe Brisson-Tsavoussis spoke to the work of the Institute in enhancing Canada’s training ecosystem in the field. Zoe related how a years-ago train-travel encounter with an enthusiastic Institute officer (Mark Richardson) catalyzed her academic career. Queen’s Principle Patrick Deane, VP Research Nancy Ross, and VP Advancement Kate Wilson also took the stage at the event.

The event, held at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, coincided with the start of the university’s annual homecoming weekend, and included several hundred guests from the university’s senior leadership, research faculty, and alumni. McDonald Institute staff, students and postdocs exhibited the Nobel Prize replica medallion and original citation, along with artifacts, models and demonstrators of SNOLAB, SNO+, NEWS-G, PICCASO, and muon/alpha/beta cloud chamber detection. SNOLAB Director Jodi Cooley attended, as well as Research Scientist Szymon Manecki, and McGill’s Thomas Brunner. Juno Award-winning composer and pianist John Burge opened the speakers’ program with a performance of “Oscillations,” which he composed in 2015 in honour of the Nobel Prize in Physics.



Neutrino GeoScience Conference - Oct 27-30

Neutrino Geoscience 2025, hosted by Queen's University and the McDonald Institute, will be a workshop during which both geoneutrinos and multi-messenger tomography of the Earth will be explored and discussed. 

While registration for the meeting is closed, it’s not too late for local attendees who might want to participate in just a few talks or a particular session to register. Please e-mail the local organizers to reserve a reduced day rate of $100. 

https://indico.global/event/14476/

MI HQP Seminar:

October 29, 3:00-4:00 PM ET 

Adriana Bariego-Quintana (Queen's University)

Dark matter haloes and galactic dynamics: Using galactic rotation curves to infer the shape and properties of dark matter haloes.

Join Zoom Meeting

The HQP Seminar Series is a monthly virtual seminar presented by graduate students and postdoctoral researchers across Canada and is an opportunity for HQP to gain experience giving a higher-profile, long-form talk and fielding questions from other experts in the field. This is an ideal venue to practice a thesis defence or colloquia talk, and adds an invited talk to a CV.

If you are interested in giving an HQP Seminar, please contact Ryan Curtis at ryan.curtis@queensu.ca 



HQP Excellence Awards!

The McDonald Institute Highly Qualified Personnel Advisory Committee (HQPAC) is launching the HQP Excellence Awards (HExA) program to recognize strong contributions of individual HQP (Highly Qualified Personnel) in three key areas: Research Achievement, Community Building/Leadership, and Teaching & Science Communication. Each of these categories will have multiple awards based on career stage, with applications open to master’s students, PhD students, and Postdoctoral Researchers. A fourth award will be reserved for undergraduates with excellence in one or more of these categories. 

More information and links to the award submission forms may be found at: https://mcdonaldinstitute.ca/news/hexawards/

The deadline for the 2024-25 Awards will be November 15th.

HQP Welcome Packages! 

The McDonald Institute is pleased to offer HQP Welcome Packages! Packages contain an assortment of cool and useful items, including pens, stickers, and, yes, astroparticle physics game cards! We’ll also include a brochure and poster with key information about community events, opportunities, and mailing lists. As this is our first time offering the welcome package, we invite all new and current students, postdocs, engineers, technicians, faculty, and staff to receive a package. To receive a welcome package, please complete this short survey. If you've already completed the survey, your package will be sent later this week!

As a special incentive, TWO lucky people who complete the welcome package survey will be selected to receive a copy of Chanda Prescod-Weinstein's new book, The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie when it's released in April 2026!

Additionally, if you would like a copy of the book for the purpose of writing a review for the McDonald Institute website/newsletter, please let us know at content@mcdonaldinstitute.ca



0vBB in Xe Next Generation Experiment Workshop

This workshop will bring together the Xe double beta decay community across different experiments to discuss potential strategies towards a sensitivity goal of 10^28 years and beyond. A potential outcome of the workshop could be the creation of a consortium or a working group to develop a more global Xe-focused strategy.

Registration deadline: Oct 28, 2025 11:59 EDT

Workshop: Nov 12-14, 2025 (Montreal)

https://nyx.physics.mcgill.ca/event/538/



NNN25 Recap

Earlier this month, SNOLAB hosted the 24th International Workshop on Next Generation Nucleon Decay and Neutrino Detectors (NNN25) at the Place des Arts du Grand Sudbury. This 3-day workshop welcomed members of the international physics community to lead important discussions and give updates on the global work underway in particle physics. 

Chang Kee Jung (Stony Brook University) delivers the workshop opening remarks

Over the last 25 years, the NNN series of workshops has been providing the international community with a forum for in-depth discussions on future large-scale detectors for research on nucleon decay and neutrino physics. The main physics topics at NNN25 included: searches for proton decay, CP violation in the lepton sector, determination of the neutrino mass hierarchy, nucleon and neutrinoless double beta decay, and observation of neutrinos from core-collapse supernovae, as well as important discussions on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in the field.

This event was hosted in partnership with the McDonald Institute and McGill University with support from the Canadian Institute of Nuclear Physics and the City of Greater Sudbury. Thank you to all who made this international workshop such a success!

Access workshop materials here.



ENT1/2ENTE 2025

The ENTENTE (Extreme Nuclear Half-Life Efforts: New Theories and Experiments) pre-workshop was held just before NNN25, from Sept 29-30. This special workshop was focused on the nuclear physics of extremely long half-lives, including theoretical and experimental opportunities at SNOLAB.

Some attendees had the opportunity to tour our underground laboratory facility as well as visit Science North & Dynamic Earth for a tour in their underground space. Additionally, attendees had the opportunity to attend a full day of insightful talks. 

Workshop materials are available here.  

In memoriam: Claude Leroy (1947 - 2025)

We are sad to learn that Claude Leroy passed away last week. A long-standing member of the particle physics group at Université de Montréal, and a leading researcher in radiation detection and high-energy physics instrumentation, Claude was influential in connecting the Montreal research community to ATLAS in the early 90’s and was a contributing member of the HELIOS, OPAL, PICASSO and MoEDAL collaborations, as well as several detector R&D collaborations. In a demonstration of his commitment to training the next generation of astroparticle physicists, he was one of the 2022 Graduate and Instrumentation Detector School (GRIDS) lecturers, teaching on the topic of radiation detectors. 

Read the Institute of Particle Physics tribute here. 

Our newsletter provides the astroparticle physics community with updates, programs, and opportunities and we want to help share your story! We invite all members of the community to contribute to this newsletter.



The McDonald Institute at Queen’s University is situated in the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe & Haudenosaunee First Nations. The Institute is part of a national network of institutions and research centres which operate in other traditional Indigenous territories. Visit www.whose.land to learn about the traditional territories where astroparticle physicists are grateful to live and work across Canada.



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