Lancaster University Physics PhD student on official science visit to US Congress

Some of the researchers were based at Fermilab, America’s premier Particle Physics laboratory, where Ishanee is involved in the MicroBooNE experiment, while others were from various universities in the US.

As the only Fermilab Student Postdoc Association officer (FSPA) from a UK university, Ishanee was eligible to take part in a visit with other researchers to Congress in the US capital.

Together the scientists visited the House of Representatives and the Senate to discuss Particle and Accelerator Physics and advocate for continued funding for the field.

Ishanee said: “We visited various offices from the House of Representatives and the Senate side in order to have continued congressional support for this fiscal year. Every time a budget is passed or sanctioned, the House of Representatives and Senators have to vote and so it’s essential that we have support from people in Congress.

“I scheduled about 20 meetings as a primary speaker and I’ll be scheduling some more before the Congress is in session to pass the budget and bills under various appropriations.”

She said none of this would have been possible without the support of her PhD supervisor at Lancaster University, Prof Jaroslaw Nowak, who said the meeting underlined the value of science and training highly skilled scientists.

“I am happy that Ishanee had this opportunity to talk to Representatives and Senators in the US Congress. As the only UK member of the representatives from Fermilab experiments, she played a crucial role in communicating the importance of international collaborations in Particle Physics experiments and science."

Ishanee said she felt it was important to represent the UK abroad.

“I think having a very US focused view is good but having a different viewpoint especially from someone from a UK university is important not just for strengthening the relations between these countries but also to understand how widespread and diverse High Energy Physics community is.

“I think it was very important for people from Congress to have an outside perspective and for them to understand how important their support is given our upcoming experiment DUNE which is a massive international effort, with the UK also playing a huge part.”