For Physicists & Engineers

Educational/Outreach Projects of Lederman Fellows
1990 – present

These are projects the Lederman Fellows worked on for a small fraction of their time and in parallel with numerous research projects.

1. Cristina Mantilla Suarez, CMS, LDMX (2020 – 2024)

   • Research mentor for 1 SIST and 5 SULI students on LDMX simulation studies on trigger and reconstruction.
   • Project leader for building a cloud chamber with petri dishes - at the Fermilab SAGE camp for girls in STEM.
   • Lecturer on "Introduction to Physics at Fermilab" for Saturday Morning Physics.
   • Committee member of the "Lederman Center Makerspace Program Development," designing and reviewing programs to be hosted in the makerspace.
   • Speaker at a Q&A with high school students and 2021 and 2022 Dark Matter Days.
   • Chair of the USCMS mentorship committee.

2. Kelly Stifter, QSC, SENSEI (2021 – 2023)

   • APS DPF Executive Committee(EC) Early Career representation, advocated for increased Early Career representation and participation on DPF panels and committees, organized opportunities for Early Career voices to be heard during the P5 process, and presented Early Career issues to several decision-making bodies in order to elevate their visibility within the community.
   • Research mentor for SIST program, mentoring a student on a project simulating the performance of novel quantum sensors.
   • Supernova Foundation mentor and contributor: The Supernova Foundation is an international mentoring program for women and gender minorities in physics.
   • Silicon Detector (SiDet) Facility tour guide for groups including high school and undergraduate students from local schools.
   • Volunteer in exciting and novel outreach programs such as "QUBIT: At The Intersection of Queerness, STEAM, and Mental Health for the Black and Brown Communities".

3. Karri DiPetrillo, CMS (2019 – 2022)

   • Lecturer on "Particle Physics in CMS" for Fermilab undergraduate lecture series.
   • Lecturer on "Particle Physics at the LHC" and coordinator for Saturday Morning Physics. Helped initiate the move to an online format during the pandemic.
   • Workshop organizer for Expanding Your Horizons in Chicago, an annual symposium for middle school girls interested in STEM.

4. Elena Gramellini, SBN, MicroBooNE (2018 – 2022)

   • Presenter and panelists at Fermilab Art+Science Lecture Series "2022 Guest Composer Suzie Shrubb" and "Guest Composer Chat with Suzie Shrubb and Elena Gramellini."
   • Writer, director and animator for the movie, The silent thread — a visceral experience of neutrino sources, premiered at the 2020 Fermilab Physics Slam.
   • Volunteer for Chicago Museum of Science and Industry Initiative in the Black Creativity Career Showcase.
   • Creator and organizer of the The Great Neutrino Hunt at the Fermilab Family Open House.
   • Reviewer to assess the impact of the Ask-A-Scientist initiative.

5. Noah Kurinksy, CDMS (2018 – 2021)

   • Lecturer on Astrophysics and Cosmology for Undergraduate Lecture Series.
   • Lecturer and coordinator for Saturday Morning Physics; helped organize the move to an online format during the pandemic and expand participation in the program to schools in Chicago.
   • Board member of TARGET, the high-school internship program at Fermilab.
   • Met with visiting groups of students to talk about careers in STEM and what the job of a physicist entails.

6. Kirsty Duffy, DUNE, MicroBooNE (2017 – 2021)

   • Presenter and co-writer of Even Bananas video series.
   • Public lectures at venues such as the Field Museum, Chicago Council on Science and Technology, and PechaKucha Night Batavia.
   • Member of usparticlephysics.org content group, developing materials to communicate how particle physics impacts your daily life. Led development of a new brochure "Particle Physicists Advance AI"

7. Javier Duarte, CMS (9/16 – 8/19)

   • Co-director and lecturer of Saturday Morning Physics, a 40-year-running Fermilab outreach program for high school students, with a focus on making lectures more interactive and reaching a more diverse audience.
   • Lecturer on "Particle Physics in CMS" for Fermilab undergraduate lecture series.
   • Committee member of TARGET high school internship program and mentor for SIST undergraduate internship program aiming to increase the representation of underrepresented minorities and women in the sciences and engineering.

8. Kanika Sachdev, NOvA (2015 – 2018)

   • Co-manage an overhaul of the Fermilab neutrino campus for outreach and tours. The neutrino detector halls and the underground areas were designed as working areas but are now open for public tours. Our goal is to provide facilities and exhibits that facilitate science communication and make tours more memorable for visitors.
   • Lecture on neutrinos to TRAC summer intern high-school teachers at Fermilab.
   • Work with QuarkNet developers to develop exercises based on neutrino physics.

9. Brendan Kiburg, Muon g-2 (9/12 – 9/16)

   • Public Lectures at venues including Adler Planeterium and TEDxNaperville.
   • Mentor of high school students in the IMSA Student Inquiry and Research program .
   • Organized Intensity Frontier Lecture Series for visiting summer students.

10. Hugh Lippincott, COUPP, (7/10 – 3/14)

    • Made educational presentations from the Lederman Education Center and Chicago Public Schools.
    • Talks on the Cosmic Frontier and dark matter to public audiences, including groups of senior citizens.
    • Advised a high school student on a year long project looking at the effects of irradiation on sodium iodide crystals.

11. David Schmitz, MINERvA (6/08 – 8/12)

    • Public lectures
    • Quantum Diaries blogger
    • Ask-a-Scientist

12. Diego Tonelli, CDF (7/07 – 12/11)

    • Helps with the "Physics Questions People Ask Fermilab" program and answers questions.
    • Gives tours of different research sites in the lab.
    • Gives physics presentations in classrooms of local Schools.

13. Ricardo Eusebi, CDF (4/06 – 8/09)

    • Helps with the general coordination of the “Saturday Morning Physics" program.
    • Teaches "Relativity" at the "Saturday Morning Physics" program.
    • Created and supports a general web page with links to the lectures, as well as web-based surveys to get feedback from the "Saturday Morning Physics" students.

14. Wade Fisher, D0 and CMS (5/05 – 8/09):

    • Career counseling at the University of Minnesota and the University of Chicago for freshman and sophomore students who are considering studying physics. Lunchtime Q&A session with small groups of students who are curious or concerned about a career in physics.
    • Gives tours of DZero and FNAL facilities.
    • Writes the result of the week for the DZero experiment in Fermilab Today.

15. Brigitte Vachon, D0 (3/04 – 8/04):

    • Taught at the “Saturday Morning Physics" program – “From Experimental Data to Physics Results”.
    • Tours and talks to visiting students at Fermilab.
    • Member of the D0 committee on the “D0 tour center”.

16. Bonnie Fleming, MiniBooNE (10/01 – 6/04):

    • Taught at the “Saturday Morning Physics" program – “Detectors”.
    • In collaboration with the Lederman Science Center, another Lederman Fellow and a local teacher launched the “Girls’ Scientific Salon”, a project for Middle School girls who would come to Fermi lab’s Lederman Science Center one Saturday everyfew months and participate in various fun science activities (e.g. the physics of cooking, the physics of ballet), as well as tour Fermilab and talk to female scientists.
    • Visits to local Elementary and High Schools at “career days”. Leading discussions on what’s like to be a scientist and what Fermilab does.

17. Natalia Kuznetsova, CDF (9/01 – 7/03):

    • Taught at the “Saturday Morning Physics" program – “Special and General Relativity”.
    • In collaboration with the Lederman Science Center, another Lederman Fellow and a local teacher launched the “Girls’ Scientific Salon”, a project for Middle School girls who would come to Fermilab’s Lederman Science Center one Saturday every few months and participate in various fun science activities (e.g. the physics of cooking, the physics of ballet), as well as tour Fermilab and talk to female scientists.
    • Visits to local Elementary and High Schools at “career days”. Leading discussions on what’s like like to be a scientist and what Fermilab does.

18. Breese Quinn, D0 (7/00 – 12/03):

    • Participated in workshops organized by Fermilab Public Affairs on the planning for a “Fermilab Visitor Center”.
    • Helped organize the new “D0 tour center” for visitors.
    • Filmed video segments for some of the Lederman Science Center displays.

19. Jay Dittmann, CDF (1/99 – 8/03):

    • Supervised Fermilab summer intern students.
    • Member of the SIST Committee (Summer Internships in Science and Technology).
    • Invited Lecturer for the Fermilab Summer Lecture Series – “High Energy Physics”, “Collider Physics”, “Detectors”.

20. Leo Bellantoni, KTeV (5/95 – 8/99):

    • Helped launch “Phriendly Physics”, an in-service training for Elementary School teachers.
    • Conducted a survey of Physics Teachers with respect to the "Saturday Morning Physics" program.
    • Tours and talks to visiting students at Fermilab.

21. Kevin McFarland, NuTeV and CDF (1/94 – 1/98):

    • Taught at the “Saturday Morning Physics" program – “Neutrinos”.
    • Helped launch the “Fermilab Teacher Fellowship” program which recruited High School teachers to the Lab to work on research projects for one year terms.
    • Visits to classrooms of local Schools.

22. Tim McKay, SDSS (11/92 – 8/95):

    • Talks and tours to school groups visiting the Lab.
    • Worked with the Lederman Science Center on organizing a special event - a nighttime viewing of the Leonid Meteor shower in November 1993. This involved the broader community that was invited to the Lab for this purpose.
    • Worked with summer undergraduate students.

23. Vaia Papadimitriou, CDF (11/90 – 9/94):

    • Taught at the “Saturday Morning Physics" program – “Symmetry”.
    • Taught at the summer “Honors Student Program” – “Top Quark”.
    • Prepared booklet with edited summaries of the "Saturday Morning Physics" lectures to be distributed to the students in the end of the "Saturday Morning Physics" Program.