The cooperation project, called “Development of Detector Technologies and Big Data Analysis Methods for Neutrino Studies”, between our university and Fermilab was deemed worthy of the International Cooperation Award within the scope of the “Council of Higher Education 2022 Excellence Awards” Institutional Awards Category. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan presented our Rector Prof. Dr. Fatih Altun and Asst. Prof. Emrah Tiras, the Project Coordinator, with the award at the Council of Higher Education Opening Ceremony of Academic Year 2022-2023.
The opening ceremony was held at Beştepe Nation’s Convention and Culture Center with the participation of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Vice President Fuat Oktay, Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye Mustafa Şentop, Ministers, Council of Higher Education (CoHE) President Prof. Dr. Erol Özvar, our Rector Prof. Dr. Fatih Altun, University Rectors, academics and students.
After the speeches of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and CoHE President Prof. Dr. Erol Özvar, “Council of Higher Education 2022 Excellence Awards” were presented.
Our university was deemed worthy of the International Cooperation Award for the project, called “Development of Detector Technologies and Big Data Analysis Methods for Neutrino Studies”, between our university and Fermilab within the scope of the “Council of Higher Education 2022 Excellence Awards”.
Stating in his speech that they were proud and happy to be considered worthy of an important award, our Rector Prof. Dr. Fatih Altun thanked President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and CoHE President Prof. Dr. Erol Özvar.
Giving information about the project, our Rector said: “Collaboration agreement between Erciyes University (ERU) and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), the second biggest accelerator laboratory in the world and under the control of the Department of Energy (DOE) of the USA, was signed on November 12, 2020. Within the framework of this agreement, in 2021, Asst. Prof. Emrah Tiras, a faculty member at the Department of Physics/ERU Faculty of Science, and his research group, Erciyes Neutrino Research Group (ENRG), became the first active members of international ANNIE, NOvA and DUNE experiments at Fermilab from our country. They have been working on R&D studies of detector technologies and big data analysis methods for neutrino studies.”
Expressing that Fermilab, as part of this agreement, supports the control room of international neutrino experiments, the R&D laboratory of particle detectors and the software laboratory where big data analysis codes are developed which are under construction at our university, our Rector continued as follows: “Thanks to this agreement, Fermilab provides special software and simulation programs and online trainings free of charge for the researchers of our university. In addition, the students and researchers of our university can easily make use of scholarship opportunities that Fermilab provides. 12 researchers (1 Lect., 3 Postdoctoral researchers, 2 PhD students, 1 graduate student and 5 undergraduate students) from ENRG of our university play an active role in international ANNIE, NOvA and DUNE neutrino experiments at Fermilab and in R&D studies within the scope of these experiments. By means of this collaboration, our researchers will be able to control these experiments remotely and contribute to the cleaning and analysis of data obtained from these experiments and to the publication of scientific results in prestigious journals in the field. Among these experiments, the project coordinator Asst. Prof. Emrah Tiras, who is one of the 2 coordinators (Run Coordinator; the other one is at Fermilab) of ANNIE neutrino experiment, is responsible for all electronic systems of the experiment and receiving regular data 24/7. Immediately after the agreement was signed, the researchers of our university and the scientists at Fermilab successfully completed 7 articles in 2021 and published them in the most prestigious journals of the field. These studies include both R&D studies for neutrino detectors and big data analyses with newly developed methods. Control room of neutrino experiments at Fermilab, detector R&D laboratory and software laboratory for big data analyses are under construction at our university. In the long term, by means of these centers, both experiments receiving active data at Fermilab will be controlled more comprehensively and prototype detector systems developed at the R&D laboratory will be tested at the world’s best test centers at Fermilab. This cooperation aims to develop joint innovative projects, publications and patents between our university and Fermilab in the field of both engineering and natural sciences and is expected to support the progress of Türkiye in the field of advanced technology by contributing to the training of qualified manpower in our country.”
