TRIUMF Lab Director to Lead Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

Nigel Lockyer, director of Canada’s TRIUMF laboratory for particle and nuclear physics and a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of British Columbia, has been selected to become the next director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

A suite of new projects awaits Lockyer at Fermilab, which is America’s premier laboratory for particle physics research.

University of Chicago President Robert J. Zimmer made the announcement today in his capacity as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Fermi Research Alliance, LLC. The appointment was approved by the University of Chicago and Universities Research Association, Inc., partners in Fermi Research Alliance, which operates the laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy. The appointment concludes a nine-month international search conducted by a 15-member committee led by retired Lockheed Martin CEO and member of the URA Board of Trustees Norman Augustine.

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz expressed his strong support for Lockyer’s candidacy after meeting with him early this week in Washington, D.C

"Nigel Lockyer will be a terrific leader to guide the Fermilab in this era," said Secretary Moniz. "He brings to the laboratory a truly impressive record of excellence as both a scientist and an administrator. His significant contributions to high energy physics are widely recognized, and he has also made his mark in other fields, including nuclear medicine. We expect Fermilab to benefit greatly from the depth and breadth of his scientific vision and his long, successful experience leading and managing scientific institutions and collaborations. I very much look forward to working with Nigel."

Said Zimmer, “Nigel Lockyer is an outstanding particle physicist of varied scientific interests that complement and reinforce Fermilab’s own multi-pronged research portfolio. His scientific rigor and accomplishments and his ability to manage large teams make him our choice to lead Fermilab into a new era of scientific research and discovery.

“I also wish to express my gratitude to Pier Oddone for his eight years of tireless, dedicated and outstanding leadership of Fermilab. We will continue to build on the foundation that he leaves us.”

Also approving Lockyer as Fermilab director was the Board of Trustees of the Universities Research Association, Inc.

“We are delighted that Nigel Lockyer will take the reins of America’s particle physics laboratory,” said Steven Beering, executive chair of URA’s Board of Trustees. “Nigel has shown the kind of forward-looking leadership that we are confident will result in a new round of compelling scientific discovery and innovation at Fermilab and advance the interests of the national and global particle physics communities.”

An experimental particle physicist, Lockyer, 60, has directed TRIUMF since May 2007. Under his leadership, TRIUMF formulated a vision for ascending the world stage in nuclear physics using rare-isotope beams to address some of the most fundamental questions in science.

The flagship of the plan is the $100 million Advanced Rare IsotopE Laboratory (ARIEL), built around a world-class electron accelerator that employs next-generation superconducting radio frequency technology.

During Lockyer’s tenure at TRIUMF, the laboratory’s operations expanded by 25 percent, earning him a reputation as a national leader and team-builder. While at TRIUMF he developed a strong working partnership among Canada’s major science laboratories, as well as building international collaborations, securing Canada’s first accelerator-science cooperative research agreements with Japan, India, China and Korea.