February 2026 Newsletter

Dear DPF members,

Please find below the monthly DPF newsletter for February 2026. This newsletter will be archived on the DPF website. If you would like an announcement included in the March 2026 newsletter, please contact the DPF Secretary/Treasurer. Please keep requests to 300 words and submit them by the 10th of the month for consideration.

DPF is the primary community organization for particle physicists in the United States. You can directly support our activities by making a donation at this link.

Best wishes,

Ken Bloom, DPF Secretary/Treasurer, kenbloom@unl.edu

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Nominations for DPF Committees

The DPF chair line and executive committee are seeking nominations of colleagues to serve on the committees to select the winners of our various prizes that recognize achievements in our field. Nominees should have a record of accomplishment in the area relevant to the prize.

We are also looking for nominations for members of the "nominating committee". The role of the nominating committee can be found in our bylaws.

To make a nomination, please fill out this form. The deadline for nominations is February 18. It is useful to have members that represent the breath of our field.

Sarah Eno
DPF Executive Committee Chair

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DPF/DNP Synergies

Dear Unit member,

Over the past few months, the chairlines of the Divisions and Nuclear Physics and Particle and Fields have been holding joint meetings to discuss existing synergies and explore potential new ones. There are many areas of natural synergy:

Detector technology and innovation,
Computing infrastructure, software development, and advanced analysis techniques such as machine learning,
Accelerator facilities and their development,
Our interlocking physics interests and goals,

among others.

There are many examples of already existing joint work in each of these areas, which would benefit from increased community.

We’re exploring potential joint meetings, ideas for joint funding projects, ways to work together to inform congress and other funding sources of the importance of our physics, as well as sharing our research experiences in the changing global landscape.

If you would like to share ideas or propose paths to pursue - please reach out to the DNP or DPF chair.

Sarah Eno, Chair, DPF Executive Committee
Nadia Fomin, Chair, DNP Executive Committee

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DPF Student Survey

Please see the information below about an opportunity for students in DPF and the broader HEP community to provide input and feedback regarding their engagement in this community. If you know of any students at your institutions that would be interested in participating, please feel free to pass along this survey and encourage them to fill it out.

In an effort to best understand the needs of this community, the DPF Executive Committee is launching a short ~10 minute survey to learn how you, HEP students, have been engaged with the APS/ DPF community over this past year, and to learn what DPF can do to best improve your experience and support you in your career journey as valuable members of the HEP community. Also included in this survey is a first call out for interest in a buddy program that could be launched at DPF2026 held at Fermilab, in July 2026.

We encourage input to this survey from both current APS/DPF student members as well as from students that are not members of APS/DPF who are actively engaged in the broader HEP community. If you are interested in signing up to join APS/DPF as a student member you can do so at https://www.aps.org/membership/join. Note that you must be a member of APS to join DPF, and you can do so by adding it as an additional membership unit. Graduate student memberships are free for the first year and then $39 annually.

Survey Link: https://forms.fillout.com/t/gyVJHDBc9pus

It will be available until February 23. I thank you in advance for taking the time to complete this survey - your feedback is important to us. Don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions you may have.

Thank you,

Olivia Meredith Bitter (former Student Representative of the DPF Executive Committee on behalf of the DPF Executive Committee)

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Community-driven AI/ML Whitepaper

Dear colleagues,

We are writing to share a community whitepaper, Building an AI‑Native Research Ecosystem for Experimental Particle Physics, and to invite your participation in shaping and endorsing this vision. The current draft is available at https://imfisk.github.io/CPSC/documents-and-reports/aiml2026/index.html.

This document articulates a coordinated, national vision for how artificial intelligence can transform experimental particle physics across the full experimental lifecycle, from design and instrumentation to operations, analysis, and discovery. It is informed by recent community efforts and aligned with current priorities in particle physics and national investments in AI and advanced computing.

We are seeking two forms of community engagement:

We invite colleagues who support the vision outlined in this whitepaper to sign on as an author, if appropriate, or endorse it using this form. Endorsement reflects support for the overall direction and goals of the document rather than agreement with every detail.
We welcome comments and clarifications, particularly where the document may miss important perspectives and/or opportunities. Please send an email to us at ai-native-hep@googlegroups.com .

Please sign-on as an author/endorser and/or submit comments by Wednesday, February 18th.

Our goal is to present a strong, inclusive community statement that can inform future planning, funding discussions, and coordinated action. We encourage broad participation across experiments, institutions, career stages, and subfields.

Thank you for helping shape the future of AI‑enabled particle physics.

Best regards,

Tulika Bose, Peter Elmer, and Verena Martinez Outschoorn (on behalf of all the authors)

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Save the Date: DPF26

The 2026 edition of the APS Division of Particles and Fields (DPF) meeting will be held at Fermilab on July 20-24, 2026. More information to come!

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IUPAP C11 Early Career Scientist Prize – Nominations for 2026

The Commission on Particles and Fields (C11) of IUPAP solicits nominations of outstanding young experimental or theoretical particle physicists for the two 2026 Early Career Scientist Prizes.

The prizes, each consisting of an IUPAP medal and a cash (CHF1000) award, will be presented at the 43rd International Conference on High Energy Physics, Natal, Brazil, on July 30th - August 5th, 2026.

Candidates for the prize should have a maximum of 8 years of research experience (excluding career interruptions) following the PhD.

Nominations for the IUPAP Particles and Fields Early Career Scientist Prizes:

• can be made by experimental or theoretical particle physicists who know the work of the nominee well and include a citation statement.

• should consist of a minimum of two and a maximum of three letters explaining the nominee's qualifications and scientific achievements, a complete CV, and a list of publications. In addition, if the nominee is a member of a large international experiment with a long list of publications signed by all or a large part of the collaboration, a list of up to 20 papers that demonstrate the work the candidate has done either as a leader or strong participant should be provided.

• must include a proposed award citation of 50 words or fewer describing the contributions of the nominee.

Recipients of IUPAP Awards are expected to meet the commonly held standards of professional ethics and scientific integrity. Nominators should include a statement saying that, to the best of their knowledge, there are no concerns that IUPAP should be aware of regarding the nominee satisfying this expectation.

The nominator should collect the material and upload it at https://iupap-ecsp.desy.de/. All material should be submitted before March 1st, 2026, at 12:00 PM CET.

Marcelo Munhoz (chair) for IUPAP C11 (2025-2027).

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54th SLAC Summer Institute

Dear Colleagues:

The 54th SLAC Summer Institute will take place during the week of 10-14 Aug 2026; the theme is “Quantum Probes for a Quantum Universe”.

Advances in quantum sensors are opening up exceptional science opportunities in a wide range of fundamental physics areas, including dark matter, axion, gravity and the neutrino sector. Their exquisite performance has greatly extended the parameter space that can be studied experimentally, and further advances will continue to push the boundaries of our knowledge of fundamental physics. The lectures at the 54th SLAC Summer Institute will cover the principles of quantum sensors, their application in experiments to date and future prospects, providing a balance between technology and science.

The Institute lectures are primarily aimed at senior graduate students and postdocs while senior researchers are also welcome. No prior experience with quantum sensing is required. Presentation of topical results, participant projects, Q&A sessions, and social events supplement the morning lectures to create an invigorating environment for all participants.

The full program and further details can be found on the SSI website:

https://indico.slac.stanford.edu/e/ssi2026

For answers to questions, please contact us at ssi@slac.stanford.edu.

We hope to see you at SLAC this summer for SSI 2026!

The SSI 2026 Program Consultants and Directors,
Chelsea Bartram, Noah Kurinsky, Richard Partridge, Emmanuel Schaan, Su Dong, Kelly Stifter, Yun-Tse Tsai, Charlie Young, and Tom Rizzo (chair)

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