The ATLAS project: How does Big Science do it? 

In 2008, the Large Hadron Collider will start operation in Geneva, Switzerland.  With its 27 km long tunnel and related accelerator complex, it is the largest scientific tool ever made, and it will allow scientists to probe the very fabric of nature to unprecedented depth. 

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Dr. Michel Lefebvre is Professor of Physics at the University of Victoria.  His research interests are in the exploration of nature's most fundamental laws and building blocks through experimental high energy particle physics.  This work involves the development, construction and operation of large particle detectors within a large international collaboration.  Shortly after joining UVic in 1992 he founded a Canadian collaboration, now comprised of over one hundred scientists, contributing to the construction of the ATLAS detector, a 7500 ton complex instrument designed to probe nature's hidden secrets.

ATLAS will start operation in 2008 on the 27 km long Large Hadron Collider, nearing completion at the European Centre for Particle Physics Research, CERN, located near Geneva.  Dr. Lefebvre has been involved in many aspects of the ATLAS detector, including the construction of complex detector components at UVic.

Dr. Lefebvre obtained his Degree from the Université Laval, his Doctorate from the University of Cambridge, and he has been affiliated with CERN for over twenty years.  He is currently a member of the Subatomic Physics Grant Selection Committee of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.  He enjoys teaching undergraduate and graduate students, and working with colleagues both at UVic and at CERN.  He received the UVic Science Award for Teaching Excellence of the Faculty of Science in 2002-03, and the 2006 UVic Craigdarroch Silver Medal for Excellence in Research.