Oct 25 2013
Texas A&M University at Qatar hosted representatives of the European Organization for Nuclear and Particle Physics Research (CERN) and visiting physicists to a workshop this month at Hamad bin Khalifa University (HBKU) Student Center.
The event was also attended by representatives of HBKU, Qatar Foundation Research & Development, Qatar National Research Fund, Qatar University, Texas A&M University and Texas A&M University at Qatar.
Mark H. Weichold, Texas A&M at Qatar dean and CEO, said, “Texas A&M at Qatar is honored to host this important meeting, as this workshop will explore prospects for Qatar to join the international collaboration of nations leading the world in fundamental and applied sciences and technology. As Qatar has outlined in its National Vision 2030, it is making a national priority efforts to become a hub of research and a contributor to knowledgeglobally. Qatar has made a tremendous effort to develop a rich environment that supports discovery, encourages academic achievement and fosters opportunities for collaboration. The visionaries who cultivated that idea have been successful and that is evidenced by the academics, researchers and guests present at this workshop. Just as CERN strives to seek answers and understanding, so does Qatar. Just as CERN seeks to bring life to ideas? So does Qatar. So, it is fitting that we are gathered today to discuss opportunities through which Qatar can participate and contribute its academic and research resources to CERN’s programs of valuable scientific discovery.”
This workshop was titled “Qatar: Path to the World’s Energy Frontier in Fundamental and Applied Science and Technology” and explored opportunities for Qatar to join the international collaboration of nations leading the world in fundamental and applied sciences and technology.
Topics discussed during the daylong workshop included forming a Qatar Science Consortium to join research activities at CERN’s Switzerland headquarters and at research centers in the US, and promoting the Qatar National Research Strategy (QNRS) and the Qatar National Vision 2030 (QNV2030) through the Qatar Science Consortium.
Fundamental questions were also posed about particle physics and cosmology, fundamental
interactions and gravity, origin of mass and electroweak symmetry breaking.
Related research was included among discussion topics and included distributed computing, high speed digital electronics
development, particle detector R&D, influence of high energy physics on the advancement of applied sciences, technology and education- and intellect-driven branches of national economies, as well as specific high-profile projects in detector and electronics R&D in which Qatar can take a significant role alongside US and European funding agencies.
Another important topic discussed was the formation of advanced undergraduate and graduate programs in physics with research performed at HBKU, Texas A&M University, Texas A&M at Qatar and Qatar University. These discussions were in addition to a dialog noting synergies within existing research initiatives such as the Qatar Environment & Energy Research Institute (QEERI) and possibilities of dual degree opportunities with the participating universities.
Othmane Bouhali, research associate professor and director of Research Computing at Texas A&M at Qatar, said, “CERN is the largest laboratory in the world. Texas A&M at Qatar is already collaborating with researchers from CERN and throughout the world in the Large Hadron Collider project. The aim of this workshop is to explore future collaboration and extend it to other partners such as HBKU, QEERI and Qatar University. It also explores opportunities for Qatar to join CERN as a collaborating member. This workshop is timely, as it comes with two major advancements at CERN that have occurred in the past two weeks. First, one of CERN’s experiments shines new light on climate changes by studying the formation of aerosols and the gases responsible for that. Second is the Nobel Prize that was awarded to Peter Higgs and François Englert for their work on the Higgs boson. This latter event was discovered last year at CERN and the publication that reported this discovery notes Texas A&M University at Qatar. This is an honor for all of us to be cited in this major discovery.”