Conference: Proposal for Support of the Annual Phenomenology Symposium at the University of Pittsburgh: 2026-2028

This grant award provides support for the 2026, 2027, and 2028 Annual Phenomenology (PHENO) Symposia at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, under the direction of Professor Tao Han. The purpose of the Annual Phenomenology (PHENO) Symposia is to present and discuss state-of-the-art results in theoretical and experimental particle physics; to stimulate new ideas in cutting-edge research and foster collaborations among physicists; and to encourage the participation of junior physicists and nurture their career development. In recent years, the annual PHENO conferences have been devoted, in large part, to studying the physics emerging from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva, Switzerland, and to the connections between these experimental results and results from other collider- and non-collider-based experiments in both elementary particle physics and astrophysics and cosmology. An increasing component of the annual PHENO Symposia concerns the connections between traditional high-energy physics and cosmology and emerging disciplines such as AI/machine learning as well as Quantum Information Science. Junior physicists are especially encouraged to attend the PHENO Symposia. Indeed, a characteristic feature of the PHENO Conferences is the significant involvement of junior physicists (graduate students, postdocs, and beginning faculty) attending from many institutions in the US. As a result, the PHENO Conferences have become nothing less than the largest professional student meetings in high-energy physics in the United States. As such, this grant serves the national interest by supporting the development of a cutting-edge scientific infrastructure in the United States and the training of junior physicists to take part in the most current research developments. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. NSF Award ID: 2622149 | Program: 01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT | Principal Investigator: Tao Han | Institution: University of Pittsburgh, PITTSBURGH, PA | Award Amount: $54,000 View on NSF Award Search: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2622149 View on Research.gov: https://www.research.gov/awardapi-service/v1/awards/2622149.html