John Peoples Jr. Served as Third Fermilab Director

John Peoples Jr., a Carnegie Mellon University alumnus and Fermi director from 1989-1999, passed away on June 25, 2025, at the age of 92.

The third director of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Peoples' career spanned more than half of a century. Peoples led Fermilab during the run of the Tevatron, which contributed to the discovery of the top quark on March 2, 1995, made the Main Injector project a reality and initiated an astrophysics program at Fermilab.

"Achieving great science requires great leadership, and John Peoples was that. His passion and dedication to physics and astrophysics led to significant contributions in Fermilab's history," said interim Fermilab Director, Young-Kee Kim. "He worked continually to maintain support from local, state and federal levels for Fermilab, helping secure funding for the Main Injector upgrade, which was significant to the lab's rich science program since the 2000s."

Peoples earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the then-Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1955. He worked briefly as an engineer before turning to physics, receiving his Ph.D. at Columbia University. Later in his career, that engineering background was often vital to finding solutions and solving technical problems.

At Carnegie Mellon, Peoples supported research in the Department of Physics, where he established the John Peoples, Jr. Research Fellowship. The one-year fellowship is awarded to an incoming graduate student in the Department of Physics and provides a stipend and additional $1,000 for education-related expenses while freeing the recipients from teaching duties their first year.

MCS Associate Dean for Research and Physics Professor Manfred Paulini served as a postdoctoral researcher as part of the Collider Detector at Fermilab experiment.

"I first met John Peoples as Fermilab Director during the discovery of the top quark," Paulini said. "He was always a kind and generous person who liked to tell stories. We are grateful for him establishing the  John Peoples, Jr. Research Fellowship and supporting the Physics Department over the years."

Peoples also supported the purchase of a numerical milling machine for the department that allows for manufacturing small-batch machined parts that can be difficult and expensive to obtain

Carnegie Mellon recognized Peoples with the Alumni Achievement Award (Merit) in 1999.

A remembrance of Peoples will take place at the Fermilab Users and Affiliates Meeting on July 18.