On Thursday, June 23, Dr. Paolo Marcazzan visited TRIUMF in his capacity as Science, Innovation & Energy Policy Officer with the British Consulate-General's office in Vancouver. Dr. Marcazzan met with TRIUMF director Nigel S. Lockyer and some of TRIUMF's senior scientists with connections to the UK; he then toured TRIUMF and visited some of the projects with key UK partners.
With a background in chemistry and a degree from UBC, Dr. Marcazzan had no trouble finding TRIUMF or understanding its importance to the Canadian university research community. Nigel outlined the scope of the TRIUMF program and highlighted several of the current connections between the lab and the UK (for instance, the present chair of the molecular and materials science experiment evaluation committee (MMS EEC) is a professor from Huddersfield in the UK; the head of TRIUMF's accelerator division is Lia Merminga and she also sits on the Accelerator Strategy Board for the UK's primary funding agency called STFC). The UK does not have rare-isotope facilities at home and therefore many collaborators travel to Europe or Canada to conduct their research. In fact, one of the detectors constructed at TRIUMF is the "TRIUMF UK Detector Array" or TUDA and it is used in nuclear astrophysics research. In the subsequent discussion, TRIUMF scientist Adam Garnsworthy commented on the historical partnerships among TRIUMF and a number of UK universities. TRIUMF researcher Iain McKenzie and UBC professor Andrew Macfarlane talked about the materials-characterization tools at TRIUMF including muSR and beta-NMR and how these compared to some of the facilities in the UK at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. AAPS, Inc. CEO Colin Jones, originally from Manchester, talked about the growing emphasis on innovation and commercialization in Canada. Deputy head of the nuclear-medicine division Paul Schaffer talked about isotope physics and chemistry research at TRIUMF and the potential for partnerships with the UK espeically the GE group at Amersham.
On the tour, Dr. Marcazzan visited the Meson Hall and saw the in-progress constructions of the M20 and M9B beam lines for materials science. He visited the nuclear-medicine labs and learned about TRIUMF's business partnership with Nordion for isotope production. He met with TRIUMF scientist Barry Davids to learn about DRAGON and nuclear astrophysics and then visited the beta-NMR facility as well the TITAN ion trap and spoke with Stephan Ettenauer. The tour completed with a close-up look at the TIGRESS facility with the guidance of Adam Garnsworthy.
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| Dr. Paolo Marcazzan (standing between Nigel Lockyer and Tim Meyer near the cyclotron symbol of the TRIUMF logo) and TRIUMF team. |
Afterward, Dr. Marcazzan thanked his hosts for the detailed visit and said that he was impressed by the strength of the existing partnerships between TRIUMF and the UK. He expressed interest in intensifying those partnerships as well as building a broader basis with some exploratory workshops.
As Canada's national laboratory based in "British" Columbia, TRIUMF was thrilled to connect with the British High Commission and share some of its common heritage. Jolly good work, mates!
--by T.I. Meyer, Head of Strategic Planning & Communications