Chris Hill has recently been appointed as the co-manager of the US CMS Phase 2 Tracker project. The US CMS Phase 2 Tracker project is a critical component of a major upgrade to the CMS experiment that is planned to take place over the next 10 years. This upgrade to the experimental apparatus is necessitated by the simultaneous upgrade of CERN’s LHC to produce significantly more intense proton beams in order to study with high precision the properties of the recently discovered Higgs boson (and whatever other new particles might be discovered with the currently operating LHC). These intense beams place demands on the tracking and triggering systems that cannot be met with the existing detectors and electronics.  They must be replaced in their entirety. This is a very large undertaking and while the costs have not yet been finalized, the US CMS role alone is likely to be in excess of $200M. The tracker project that Prof. Hill will manage is largest single part of this effort.  He will be oversee the scientific direction of the project, work with the funding agencies (DOE/NSF) to pass various stages of external review, and allocate the awarded funds to the appropriate university and government laboratory collaborators in order to design, build, and commission the new detectors.

Congratulations Chris!