sPHENIX is a new detector at RHIC.

[Gunther M Roland <rolandg AT mit.edu>]

Friends,

Please find below the statements of the four candidates who have kindly 
agreed to stand for election to the sPHENIX Executive Council. Many thanks to 
Vitali, Christine, Jin and Vicki! We will forward the corresponding poll to 
the IB members shortly. Please share your thoughts with your IB 
representatives.

Best,

Gunther and Dave

>>>>>

Vitalii A. Okorokov
National Research Nuclear University MEPhI

At present I am professor of the Physics Department in the
National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics
Institute) – NRNU MEPhI, Russia. The main field of my scientific
interests is the study of strongly interacting matter with help of
particle correlations. The progress for our understanding the state of
strongly interacting matter under extreme conditions of temperature
and density and its connection to the early Universe remains at the
forefront of scientific research. But I also suppose that the cold
nuclear matter is very important direction for the further
studies. Therefore I took part in the preparation of the sPHENIX note
sPH-cQCD-2017-001 within Cold QCD physics working group. If elected, I
will work towards in particular to bring sPHENIX in synergy with other
contemporary experiments. I hope that my work experience can be useful
for sPHENIX collaboration and for activities of the Executive Council
(EC).

Christine Nattrass
University of Tennessee, Knoxville

I began my career in heavy ion physics as a graduate student on STAR
at Yale, graduating in 2009 with my thesis on dihadron correlations in
Cu+Cu and Au+Au collisions at sqrt(sNN) = 62 and 200 GeV.  I came to
the University of Tennessee, Knoxville as a post doc in 2009 where I
joined the ALICE and PHENIX collaborations and I became an assistant
professor in 2012.  On ALICE I have worked on measurements of
transverse energy and jets.  I also worked on repairing, comissioning,
and supporting front end electronics for the electromagnetic
calorimeter.  I currently have three PhD students on ALICE, one
masters student studying the distribution of transverse energy among
different particles, and four undergraduates.  I wrote a review paper
on jets with Megan Connors, Rosi Reed, and Sevil Salur and I have
developed background subtraction techniques for measuring jets in a
high background environment.  Even while focusing on ALICE for my
tenure case, I have retained my connections to RHIC community, serving
on the RHIC/AGS UEC June 2014 - June 2017.  I attend Nuclear Physics
Day in Washington, DC with the UEC nearly every year to lobby for
continued nuclear physics funding.  I also worked on the Diversity
Committee, a connection I retain, and have been committed to
increasing diversity in physics for the duration of my career.  I
organized the 2012 Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics
(CUWiP) at UTK.  This year I took a delegation of students to CUWiP
and last year I took a delegation of students to the National Society
of Black Physicists annual meeting.  I submitted my tenure package in
Fall 2017, which provides me an opportunity to shift the direction of
my research.  I have been a member of sPHENIX since Summer 2015 and I
see my future at RHIC.  I hope to have the opportunity to serve on the
EC.

Jin Huang
Brookhaven National Laboratory

It is my honor to participate the election for the sPHENIX Executive
Council (EC). As an Associate Physicist at BNL, I have contributed to
all four physics topical groups and almost all detector subsystems of
sPHENIX. In particular, I have been serving as a co-convener for the
Heavy Flavor Topical Group and have been leading the effort of
studying heavy flavor jet using sPHENIX. I am also leading the general
simulation and software efforts, which connect the scientific goals to
the detailed detector design. As the level-3 project manager for the
TPC back-end DAQ, I oversee the transformation of the TPC back-end DAQ
from a sketch to a solid path of hardware design and prototyping. I am
also deeply involved with the design and beam test of the EM
calorimeter. Prior to joining the sPHENIX collaboration, I have played
major roles in the commissioning of the PHENIX forward vertex
detector, and thereafter its alignment, analysis and publication of
its first set of heavy flavor results. I am also currently on my
second EC term for the PHENIX collaboration.

If elected to the sPHENIX EC, it is my highest priority in EC to build
the optimum sPHENIX detector and program under various constraints,
and to grow the resource of the collaboration in manpower and in
foreign contributions. With my connections to many detector
subsystems, my perspectives on capabilities and potentials of detector
variations could be useful in the EC discussions. With my work in both
the heavy ion and spin communities, I can also provide a distinct view
point to the EC.

Vicki Greene
Vanderbilt University

Vicki Greene
Statement of candidacy:

It is an honor and privilege to be nominated to the sPHENIX Executive
Committee.  I have been a member of the sPHENIX Institutional Board
for Vanderbilt since 2016 and a member of the collaboration since it
first formed. I am currently setting up a clean room facility at
Vanderbilt to serve as a factory for the GEM detectors to be used as
readout for the TPC particle tracker.  I am also a longstanding member
of PHENIX, for which I led construction of the pad chambers, and CMS,
for which I direct the Tier 2 Computing Center at Vanderbilt. I have
held a number of administrative positions at Vanderbilt, the most
recent being Senior Associate Dean for Graduate Education and
Research.  I am currently chair-elect of the Faculty Senate.  I am
also founding faculty advisor for VU Women in Science and Engineering,
and I am past chair of and conduct site visits for the APS Committee
on the Status of Women in Physics.

Should I be elected to the sPHENIX EC, my primary aim for the
experiment would be to ensure that sPHENIX emerges from its
construction phase prepared to execute the ambitious physics goals as
outlined in the planning documents. I have had the fortune to work on
a number of successful experiments from their inception, and I have a
good sense of what is required.  My mission for the collaboration
itself is to ensure transparent and equitable processes across the
collaboration.  By building these in from the beginning, we have the
possibility to ensure that sPHENIX works smoothly and effectively for
all members.