July 2026 Newsletter

Dear DPF members,  

Please find below the monthly DPF newsletter for July 2026. This newsletter will be archived on the DPF website. If you would like an announcement included in the August 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 supports a Slack instance where you can make contact with other particle physicists and get rapid communications on community issues.  Contact Bob Bernstein, rhbob@fnal.gov, for an invitation.

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

Top

Call for nominations for the DPF Executive Committee

The APS Division of Particles and Fields Nominating Committee requests your assistance in identifying candidates to stand for office in this fall’s DPF elections. This year, we will be electing people to these offices:

Vice Chair (1 position, 2027, then Chair Elect in 2028, Chair in 2029, and Past Chair in 2030)

Executive Committee Member-at-Large (2 positions, 2027-2029)

Early Career Member-at-Large (1 position, must be a postdoctoral researcher, 2027-2028)

Student Member (1 position, must be a graduate student who has passed their doctoral candidacy exam and is in good academic standing at their institution, 2027)

We invite you to nominate outstanding colleagues to be on this year’s ballot. Nominations should be submitted here by August 15, 2026. Self-nominations are welcome. 

Guided by our core values, APS encourages nominations that reflect the full range of talent, distinction, and experience in our field, and supports broad canvassing for professionals across diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and expertise.

All elected candidates will begin their terms on January 1, 2027. More details about current officers and related governance information can be found on the DPF Website. Governance of DPF is an important act of service to our community, and we thank you in advance for helping identify excellent candidates.

Mitch Soderberg (on behalf of the DPF Nominating Committee, msoderbe@syr.edu)

Top

DPF26: July 20-24, 2026 at Fermilab

Registration is now closed but slides will be posted at https://indico.fnal.gov/event/72820/.

Top

Announcement of the “Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science” Video Contest

We announce the 2026 edition of the Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science Video Contest.  We invite early-career scientists -- students and postdocs -- to make a 5-minute video explaining some topic in the realm of nuclear and particle physics.  There will be cash prizes for 3 winning videos. The deadline for submissions is August 16, 2026.  Please see the rules and contest schedule at:

https://www.annualreviews.org/page/ARNPS_VideoContest

We are the editors of the journal "Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science".  As the title indicates, we publish each year a volume of 25-page invited reviews on important topics in this area.

There is much discussion these days about how both journals and review articles are becoming out of date in the era of internet media.  How will we teach one another about new developments in our science?  For this, we senior people need your help.  We will appreciate it if you tell us your suggestions, but it is better if you show us.

This is the aim of the ARNPS Video Contest.   Please make a 5-minute video explaining to your peers some point of physics within the realm of Nuclear and Particle Science. Your video should be correct and informative, but we hope it will also be innovative both in its content and in its presentation. 

We emphasize that (1) this contest is specifically for early-career scientists, and (2) these videos are not intended for public outreach ("Physics SLAM"s) but rather for peer-to-peer scientific communication.   This is the second year of the contest.  The videos from the 2025 winners are posted at:

https://www.annualreviews.org/page/ARNPS_VideoContest_Results

Good luck!  We are eager to see your presentations.  

Best wishes,

Michael Peskin   (mpeskin@slac.stanford.edu)

Wick Haxton      (haxton@berkeley.edu)

Top

Nominations for APS Prizes and Awards Due Soon!

Nominations for APS Dissertation Awards are due August 31, 2026.  You need to be a member of DPF and APS to nominate. 

The Mitsuyoshi Tanaka Dissertation Award recognizes exceptional early-career scientists who have performed original doctoral thesis work of outstanding scientific quality and achievement in experimental particle physics.

The J. J. and Noriko Sakurai Dissertation Award recognizes exceptional early-career scientists who have performed original doctoral thesis work of outstanding scientific quality and achievement in the area of theoretical particle physics.

Top

Save the dates for next community meeting and DPF28

Our third DPF virtual community meeting will be held December 3 and 4, 2026.  It will again be joint with DNP.  We have confirmed the availability of DOE and NSF staff.  More details will come this fall.

And, we have news on DPF28.  DNP suggested that we co-locate with them in the fall of 2028.  We consulted with the DPF Executive Committee, and the overwhelming opinion was to accept. We are looking at multiple locations and hope to have a formal announcement as soon as possible. We look forward to working with the community to make this an exciting conference.

Top

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)

Top

RPC 2026, September 14-18, 2026

RPC 2026 will take place on September 14-18, 2026, at the Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. General information is available on the conference website (https://rpc2026.uerj.br/) and on the event page (https://indico.global/event/15349/). This edition will be especially meaningful as it will be the first time the RPC Conference is held in Brazil and in South America.

The meeting is devoted to resistive plate chambers (RPCs) and related gaseous detector technologies, with topics spanning detector performance in high-energy physics experiments, production and quality assurance, instrumentation techniques, alternative gas mixtures and longevity studies, physics and simulation, and applied research. We believe these themes may be of interest to DPF members working on detector R&D, instrumentation, collider experiments, and related applications.

Abstract submission is open until June 24, 2026, and early registration will remain open until August 1, 2026.

Best regards,

Dr. Sandro Fonseca de Souza

Dr. Gilvan Augusto Alves

Chairs of the Local Organizing Committee, RPC 2026

info.rpc2026@uerj.br

Top