Carnegie Mellon University
June 26, 2019

Carnegie Mellon Hosts International Subatomic Physics Conference

By Ben Panko

More than 120 scientists from around the world converged on Carnegie Mellon University this month to share the latest breakthroughs in nuclear and particle physics.

"There's a community of physicists interested in the interactions of mesons and nucleons," said Professor of Physics Reinhard Schumacher, who co-chaired the local organizing committee of the 15th International Conference on Meson-Nucleon Physics and the Structure of the Nucleon (MENU). "We like to think of it as a boundary between nuclear and particle physics."

Over the course of five days, more than 100 presentations were given on leading topics in the field, including more than a dozen presentations by graduate students getting exposure to presenting at a major conference. Notably, several Carnegie Mellon alumni also presented their current work, including an opening talk by Florida State University Assistant Professor of Physics Sean Dobbs, a 2003 graduate.

Schumacher and fellow co-chair Curtis Meyer, professor of physics and associate dean for research, spent the past year working with a local organizing committee made up of physicists at Carnegie Mellon and other local universities to pull together the conference.

"Reinhard and I both felt that the conference was a big success," Meyer said, noting the many positive remarks he heard from attendees about their experiences at Carnegie Mellon and in Pittsburgh. They're now working to pick the facilities for the 2022 MENU conference in Mainz, Germany.