Hi Zachary,

We hope you're keeping well and enjoying the beginnings of Spring!

Thank you for your continued support and engagement with the McDonald Institute, and as always, if you have something you'd like to see shared in our newsletter, please get in touch via communications@mcdonaldinstitute.ca





TONIGHT! Wednesday, March 12 at 7 PM ET.

Shohini Ghose: How Trailblazing Women Scientists Decoded the Hidden Universe

From the Big Bang to dark matter, this talk celebrates women who transformed both our cosmos and society through groundbreaking discoveries.

Register for the in-person event here.

Watch the live stream on YouTube here.



McDonald Institute Annual Community Meeting:

Aug 6-8 (and Aug 5 HQP Workshop)

This year’s McDonald Institute Annual Community Meeting will be held at Carleton University in Ottawa from Wednesday, August 6, to Friday, August 8.

While the detailed agenda is still being developed, registration on the meeting’s Indico site is now open at https://indico.global/e/2025CAPCM

As in previous years, we will offer HQP registrants the option to attend a day of special workshops on Tuesday, August 5. The Institute will provide residence room accommodations for students, technicians, and postdoctoral fellows to support their participation in any part of the workshop and meeting.



SNOLAB 2025 Future Projects Workshop

As part of its long-term planning process, SNOLAB is providing a community-wide review of potential future projects interested in access to Canada’s underground laboratory. The Future Projects Workshop will engage with collaborations that have an interest in using any space underground, including any of the large-scale experimental areas within SNOLAB, over the next five to 10 years. All are invited to present their capabilities, R&D projects, status, plans, and infrastructure requirements for review.

“We are looking for input from both existing and potentially new users about the future of the lab,” says SNOLAB research Group Manager Stephen Sekula. “We are looking forward to hosting a community of current and potential researchers in person at SNOLAB!”

The workshop will be onsite at SNOLAB in Sudbury from April 29 to May 1, 2025. The workshop will also cover SNOLAB’s new 15-Year Plan framework introduced in the 2024 Canadian Federal Budget to support Major Research Infrastructures.

For more information or to register, please visit our Indico page here: https://indico.snolab.ca/e/fpw2025



WIPC+: Save the Dates! July 22-25

The 11th year of the Women+ In Physics Canada (WIPC+) Conference is coming to Kingston, Ontario! The McDonald Institute is pleased to partner with Queen's University Department of Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy, Royal Military College, and SNOLAB to bring this conference to life! 

This conference platform aims to amplify the scientific contributions of women, gender minorities, and their allies to share research, network, and expand professionally in the field of physics. Conference delegates will have the opportunity to build networks, explore career paths, and present research while also promoting conversations about gender equity in physics.

For more information, visit the Conference Website.https://www.queensu.ca/wipc2025/ 

Abstract submissions are opening soon! Registration to follow this spring! 

We welcome everyone to contribute to making this year’s WIPC+ Conference a meaningful and memorable event, building on the successes of past hosts!

McDonald Institute HQP Seminar:

March 26, 3:00 PM ET : Ata Sattari (UofT)

SuperCDMS Silicon Calorimeters and Sub-keV Electron Recoil Calibration Using Compton Steps

McDonald Institute Seminars:

March 20, 1:30 PM ET : Brigitte Vachon (McGill)

Using liquid helium to search for ultra low mass dark matter.

March 27, 1:30 PM ET : Noë Roy (York)

Long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments.

April 3, 1:30 PM ET : Tsuguo Aramaki (Northeastern)

Searching for dark matter with both direct and indirect detection experiments.

Previous McDonald Institute Seminars and HQP Seminars can be accessed in the streaming section of our YouTube channel here.

The new MI HQP Seminar Series is a forum for graduate students and postdocs to deliver a higher-profile talk. This is an ideal venue for speakers to practice a long-form talk, such as a thesis defence or as part of a job application, and to add an invited talk to their CV. Supervisors, please consider discussing this opportunity with your HQP and encourage them to apply! Interested parties, please contact Robert Collister at rcollister@physics.carleton.ca 



McDonald Institute broadens collaboration with AstroCeNT 

AstroCeNT Plus, a leading research centre in Poland recently announced its expanded collaboration with the McDonald Institute, which has joined as an associate partner to the Warsaw-based organization’s new consortium of European organizations including APC (AstroParticule et Cosmologie), DESY (Deutshes Elektronen-Synchrotron), Gran Sasso Science Institute, and Łukaseiwicz Network.  

An official launch event was held Feb. 19 at the Copernicus Science Centre (Centrum Nauki Kopernik) in Warsaw. 

AstroCent Director Leszek Roszkowski presents an overview of AstroCeNT Plus to the delegates.

AstroCeNT Plus research consortium, based at the Warsaw University of Technology, focuses on the detection of dark matter, neutrino physics, and the development of advanced detectors. The new EU Horizons funding will help AstroCeNT Plus partners leverage each others’ strengths in research, technology development, and public education and outreach. The Teaming for Excellence program supports enhanced research capabilities, sharing of expertise, and promotion of scientific excellence. ASTROCeNT Plus specifically focuses on dark matter detection, neutrino physics, and the development of advanced detectors. 

For more information about AstroCeNT Plus and the Teaming for Excellence program, please visit the AstroCeNT Plus Website . Also see the recent Innovation News Network feature story detailing the expanded consortium. 



Round 11 of the HQP Pooled Resources competition will go live tomorrow, March 13, 2025. This round aims to fund graduate astroparticle physics researchers working in Canada with a start date in Sept 2025, a two-year period (up to four years for PhD students, conditional on the McDonald Institute receiving continued funding). Funding for positions is available to those pursuing astroparticle physics research in Canada aligned with the McDonald Institute Research Strategy. The deadline for applications is April 17, 2025.

International School of Subnuclear Physics

We are pleased to share a unique opportunity for two of our HQP (one grad student and one postdoc) to attend the 2025 Course of the International School of Subnuclear Physics, to be held in Erice, Italy, from 14 to 23 June 2025, and participate in the New Talents competition. Every year since 1963, the development of subnuclear physics has been recorded, and the hottest topics of the moment were registered as faithfully as possible in the discussion sessions of the Erice School. 

We supervisors to nominate individuals by completing a nomination form and providing a letter of support for each nominee. Students and postdocs interested in this opportunity should speak with their supervisors.

The deadline to submit nominations is March 31st, at which time the submissions will be reviewed, and one graduate student and one postdoctoral researcher will be selected. The information will then be forwarded to the conference. The conference will pay for entry to the conference, accommodations, and local expenses, and the McDonald Institute will pay for travel costs. 

Please send completed nomination forms along with support letters to admin@mcdonaldinstitute.ca for review.

Thank you, 

New Machinist, Jeff Kingma

We’re pleased to share that Jeff Kingma became the McDonald Institute's new Machinist last month and will be working in the Physics machine shop at Queen’s University. Jeff is a licensed tool and die maker and a proficient CNC machinist. Jeff has over fifteen years of experience in CNC mill and lathe work in prototyping and small production runs with Nuformex in Kingston and previously in aerospace machining with Centra Industries in Kitchener. He trained in mechanical engineering, tool and die, and CNC machining at Georgian College in Barrie and Conestoga College in Kitchener. Jeff will coordinate his projects with Koby Dering of the McDonald Institute Engineering team at Queen’s and is excited to tackle the technical challenges of experiments such as PICO 500.



Jeff’s passion for the outdoors and farming brought him and his family to the Kingston area 4 years ago, where they started a small hobby farm with horses, guinea pigs and bunnies. In his off time, Jeff enjoys fishing, tending to the farm, and coaching his daughter’s hockey teams in his off time.

NASA Senior Scientist’s Career Reflections at Queen’s

Dr. Hashima Hasan, a NASA senior scientist met Feb. 25-26 with students and faculty at Queen’s University at fireside chat and seminar events organized by Ingeniuity Labs and co-sponsored by the McDonald Institute. Dr. Hasan, who worked on the Hubble and JWST programs and currently has senior roles with IXPE (Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer) and NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array). She has held a wide range of roles, including Deputy Program Scientist (JWST) and Lead for Astronomy and Physics Research and Analysis. She provided career stories, and professional advice for students during the well-attended evening fireside chat and updated students on space telescope research programs in a morning seminar in Queen’s Faculty of Engineering and Applied Sciences.



Monday, April 3rd, at 2:00 pm ET

(First Monday of every month at 2pm ET)

The MI-HQPAC (McDonald Institute Highly Qualified Personnel Advisory Committee) invites you to join in an open, drop-in virtual Town Hall meeting. This event is open to all members of the astroparticle physics research community. It focuses on issues relevant to the HQP community (students, postdocs, and early career researchers, engineers, and technicians). The Committee holds the monthly Town Hall meetings the week before the monthly committee meeting, where topics brought up during the Town Hall can be discussed in more detail and put into action.

This meeting is an opportunity to connect with others who are passionate about making the HQP experience the best it can be. It is a chance to talk about all issues, ideas, and questions with the people who are working to address them. It is also a great way to become familiar with the Committee and is recommended for anyone who is considering joining the committee.

Details 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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