On September 8th, His Excellency Rafael Barak, Israel’s Ambassador to Canada, visited TRIUMF. Following a 2011 visit from his predecessor, this was Ambassador Barak’s first call to the laboratory since taking up his post in November 2013.
Upon arriving and signing into the guest book, the Ambassador greeted the receiving party in the conference room with a warm “hello” and “shalom.” Director Jonathan Bagger and Science Division Head Reiner Kruecken welcomed Ambassador Barak with a special presentation on TRIUMF’s mission and science program, highlighting the laboratory’s numerous collaborations with Israel over the years. The meeting progressed into a roundtable discussion with several TRIUMF researchers and staff who shared their experiences of collaborating with Israel.
This discussion highlighted many important issues, particularly the value of exploring new partnerships in areas such as particle physics, nuclear medicine, and nuclear physics. Also emphasized was TRIUMF’s critical role in Canada’s contributions to the Large Hadron Collider and the ATLAS detector, the latter of which involved significant collaboration with Israel.
Following this discussion, the Ambassador also received a short tour of the laboratory, which included visits to the Electron Hall, the 500 MeV main cyclotron, ISAC I & II, and the ATLAS Tier-1 Data Centre. The Ambassador also briefly visited Nordion’s operations on the TRIUMF campus to observe an example of the laboratory’s strong relationship with its industry partners.
Ambassador Barak, impressed with the breadth of TRIUMF’s history of collaboration with Israel, expressed interest in reducing barriers to scientific collaboration, strengthening existing partnerships, such as with Soreq and the Weizmann Institute, as well as exploring new opportunities. TRIUMF will work with the Ambassador and his Embassy to facilitate bilateral engagement.
At the conclusion of His Excellency’s two-hour visit, it was agreed that efforts would continue to foster cooperation and derive benefit from the rich history of collaboration between Israel and TRIUMF.
–Prepared by Melissa M. Baluk, Communications Coordinator
Photo by Nicole Bienvenu
More pictures from Ambassador
Barak’s visit available on our Flickr page.