National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL)

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National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory
(NSCL)
The NSCL is a world-leading national user
facility for rare isotope research and education
in nuclear science, astro-nuclear physics,
accelerator physics, and societal
applications 284 employees, including 44
undergraduate and 55 graduate students, 24
faculty (as of September 15, 2006) User group of
over 700 registered scientists
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NSCL educational impact

• As a university-based national user facility the
  NSCL plays a prominent role in the education of
  the next generation of scientists through a close
  synergy of classroom education and hands-on
  laboratory research
• US News and World Report ranks MSU Nuclear
  Physics Graduate Program 2 in the nation (behind
  MIT)
• 55 graduate students at the NSCL have
  assistantships to support their thesis research
• MSU/NSCL is one of a few U.S. institutions with
  PhD programs in nuclear chemistry and accelerator
  physics (in addition to nuclear physics and
  nuclear astrophysics)
• 44 undergraduate students on NSCL payroll
  additional undergraduate participation via REU,
  MoNA-collaboration, outside users, MSU Honors
  College
• 10 of the nations nuclear science PhDs are
  trained at NSCL
• Median time to PhD at NSCL is about 1.5 years
  below national average
• as of Sept. 15, 2006

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Brief history
1961 NSF approval to build K50 cyclotron with
separated orbit extraction at MSU 1965 Research
begins with K50 cyclotron (E 50 MeV for
protons) 1975 NSF approval to build prototype
superconducting cyclotron magnet 1978 NSAC
recommends construction of NSCL as a national
user facility 1982 Science begins with
superconducting K500 cyclotron (E/A 70 MeV for
Q/A 0.5) 1988 Science begins with K1200
cyclotron (E/A 200 MeV for Q/A
0.5) 1990 Superconducting cyclotron for oncology
at Harper Hospital completed 1990 NSCL Phase II
complete -- rare isotope research with
superconducting K1200 superconducting A1200
fragment separator 1993 NSF approval to
construct superconducting S800 spectrograph
now workhorse for rare isotope
program 1994 NSCL White Paper for Coupled
Cyclotron Facility (CCF) large (factors of
100-10,000) intensity gains for rare isotope
production 1995 NSAC recommends CCF
construction 1996 NSF-approval of CCF 2000 NSCL
White Paper on Scientific Opportunities with Fast
Fragmentation Beams from RIA 2001 CCF completed
within budget and schedule -- start research with
CCF 2002 NSAC LRP priorities NSCL operations,
RIA construction 2004 Construction of south high
bay for assembly and RD (MSU funded) 2006 NSCL
White Paper for next generation RI facility (in
progress)
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Funding history
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What is needed?

• Different styles can be equally successful no
  unique formula for success
• Outstanding faculty striving to improve quality
  and attract the best in the world
• Willingness to make tough tenure decisions (not
  easy!)
• Retain the best they will almost certainly be
  courted aggressively by others
• Willingness to change
• Team spirit Culture of rational collegiality and
  fairness
• The success of the lab is of paramount importance
• Overarching theme I will benefit, if my
  colleague is successful it is bad for me if my
  colleague fails (and stays)
• Trouble makers are rarely worth having around
  (unless they are extremely brilliant, i.e., much
  smarter than the rest)
• Flexible resources
• Keep reserve funds separately to be able to make
  significant adjustments
• Keep individual budgets tight
• Allow for modest amount of over-budgeting
• Discourage year-end spending spree

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The vagaries of federally funded research

• New trends of federally funded research are
  influenced by fashions, hype, new paradigms and
  emerging community consensus
• Different societies may have different value
  systems and different perspectives
• US approach is less steady, but very flexible
• Mean, lean fighting machine means there will
  always be pressure and discomfort
• Be a national player
• There is no stable equilibrium in research
• like sharks, you have to move in order to feed
• Accept a reasonable amount of risk without being
  foolhardy
• Important to excel now and plan for the future
  (inherent conflict must be able to say no in
  an acceptable way)
• Dont start what you cannot expect to complete,
  and complete what you started know when to call
  it a victory
• Need free resources, managed centrally (and
  wisely)
• Federal funding comes in ups and downs need to
  be able to deal with swings in funding
• Must be able to moving quickly into new areas
  trim all fat and keep a significant resource pool
  centrally

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What else is needed?

• Most people like to do a good job
• but lack of clear understanding of the
  organizations goals and priorities (long and
  short term) can lead to ineffective decisions
  or inefficient decision process
• Important to communicate clearly and effectively
• Short and to the point long, wordy planning
  documents are fairly useless
• OK to be incomplete
• Make sure top priorities are understood
• Clear understanding where to go
• Otherwise one ends up some place different
• Verify that you are on track
• Most important, this requires a vision
• Empower best faculty
• Thinking out of the box is OK, but then decide
• Accept inequality
• Recognize different time scales (1year, 3-5years,
  gt5 years) and have plans and activities for each
  of them

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Common goals and ability to pursue them

• At NSCL, we issue each year an updated goals
  document that is developed with lab leadership
  and then communicated to staff
• Terse language primarily in bullet form
• Total length lt 12 pages
• Key elements of this goals document
• NSCL long term objectives 6 bullets typically
  that evolve over the years
• NSCL priorities for the year some 4-6 priorities
  that we want to get done that address specific
  long term objectives
• Departmental goals for each department some
  dozen goals and/or responsibilities stated in
  bullet form some are nearly time-invariant,
  others are task-specific
• A summary statement that delineates expectations
  for professional behavior and generic
  implementation guidelines for department heads
  how to set goals for their supervisees (largely
  boilerplate language that is a useful reminder)
• Department head performance reviews are based on
  goals document
• Expectation all department heads must understand
  the overarching goals for the lab and do their
  best to promote them top management gets
  involved if conflicts on priorities cannot be
  resolved by conversations between department heads

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Define roles and responsibilities

• For small organizations, this can be done rather
  informally especially when everybody is
  motivated to make lab succeed
• For larger organizations this needs clarity, and
  is best written down
• Need to define boundaries to avoid the not my
  responsibility syndrome
• Culture of not looking the other way
• Rigorous culture of trouble reports and
  professional follow-up
• Mistakes can occur but better not twice
• Analyze what went wrong, to learn from mistakes
  (avoid pointing fingers)
• Work-flow management
• Daily coordination meetings for technical staff
• The left hand must know what the right hand is
  doing
• Even good intentions can do damage (elsewhere) if
  there is no coordination
• Safety lock-out, tag-out process
• Project teams
• Define project leaders and teams
• Often from different departments (reduce empire
  building)
• Empower project leaders (budget control)

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Conflict resolution

• Avoid inflammatory email
• Avoid heated discussions in the corridors (as
  much as possible)
• Disciplinary actions/advice should be
  confidential
• Preferred fast track decision mode get all
  involved at the table, delineate the problem, and
  request constructive advice on how to move
  forward
• Lead group to realize best path forward and get
  buy-in
• Arrive at path forward and ensure that it is
  followed, but be open to change if there are
  compelling reasons to change
• If needed, follow up by action memo
• For the record, but also a rather formal tool
• Puts everybody on notice that s/he will be held
  accountable

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Making sure that priorities happen

• Doing (new) things requires money and people-time
  control of these resources in a prudent way is
  essential
• Money
• Establish project or task specific sub-accounts
• Empower project and task leaders by giving them
  budget authority up to a limit
• Efficient procurement system with real-time
  controls
• Ensure that money can only be spent for the
  purpose it was budgeted
• Allow monitored transfers between accounts
• Hold an appropriate reserve to stay flexible
• People (Time is more than money)
• Decide what not to do
• Track activities to monitor progress, avoid
  dilution of effort, and remain compliant and
  auditable
• Hourly effort reporting for technical staff,
  submitted weekly against project accounts to be
  signed by supervisor
• Faculty, postdocs and students can report with
  less resolution (needed for compliance issues)
• Make system useful for supervisors
• Reward performance at raise time
• Identify fast risers and develop appropriate
  raise mechanism
• Added benefit
• Compare real costs with estimates improved idea
  what it takes to do certain jobs or tasks

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Performance metrics

• Good metrics allow monitoring changes and making
  needed adjustments
• Avoid games to make metric look good
• Prefer hard metrics
• Set ambitious goals, but make achieving them
  realistic (expectation management)
• Analyze what keeps you from meeting your goals
  and what it takes to meet them
• Make organizational or cultural changes if needed
  identify a driver of change
• NSCL metrics
• Publications in high-quality, high-impact
  refereed journals
• Invited talks at conferences
• Federal funding
• Number of users
• User satisfaction
• Facility use and availability
• Availability what fraction of previously
  scheduled time is equipment running?
• Major issue for NSCL a few years ago
• Rigorous elimination of weak systems via
  re-engineering and strict follow-up
• Safety metrics injury related losses of workdays
• A culture change still in the making
• New goal ISO-14001 compliance

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Good citizenship
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External reviews

• Some are part of the business cycle
• NSF initiated reviews to validate quality of
  program and money needs
• Program advisory committees
• High-level external advice is useful even if
  you believe you know it all
• Get the best people possible and pay them to do a
  good job
• Dont try to play games get best advice
  possible even if it is uncomfortable
• Example operations advisory committee led to
  significant changes in running the lab
• Staff needed to buy in (external competition with
  ANL helped)
• Better lab now than before
• Example NSCL diversity review committee
• Report just in will analyze suggestions and
  develop an action plan
• Perhaps the biggest benefit
• Look at yourself carefully
• Write down your perspectives and plans
• Refine your plans
• Analyze what you can do better (and whether the
  benefit justifies the cost)
• Hopeful outcome external validation of
  excellence
• If not, make corrections even if they are painful

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Examples of transformational changes

• In the past, the Cyclotron Lab (as it was
  originally called) made several major changes in
  research direction
• Transition from a strong K50 research program
  (precision spectroscopy) to heavy-ion reaction
  studies (Klumpenphysik) with K500
• Competition for building next intermediate-energy
  heavy ion user facility (ORNL, BNL, MSU)
  resulting in the establishment of the NSCL
• Re-establishment of strong nuclear structure
  effort by committing major resources to build
  S800 spectrograph
• Construction of Coupled Cyclotron Facility (CCF)
  new focus on research with rare isotope beams
• Decision to compete for RIA (while still
  completing CCF) the ultimate rare isotope
  research machine
• DOE had announced that it would build RIA
• Main competitor ANL a national lab owned by
  DOE
• DOE institutional bias was strongly in favor of
  ANL
• Significant catch-up in technological know-how
  (superconducting linacs)
• This year decision to break rank and propose a
  lower-cost (but also lower performance!) rare
  isotope facility that could be funded by NSF

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Staff motivation

• Work morale is critical
• Lab improvement committee (marginal success)
• Party fund (ask faculty to donate to lab
  BBQ-fund)
• Salary
• Lab-wide meetings convey what is important and
  what is happening
• Make sure that credit is given fairly
• Avoid bureaucratic drag as much as possible (and
  reasonable)
• Directors job/attitude get out of the way when
  thing are moving in the right direction
• Empower people to to their job well
• Resolve emerging conflicts fairly, firmly, and
  politely
• No favorites

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Staff faculty development

• An area where we want to improve (work in
  progress)
• Support staff training and cross training if
  feasible
• Bring in, train, and retain new leaders to
  maintain continuity
• Manage transition from current leadership
  generation to next one
• More formal mentoring of students and postdocs
• Women and minorities how to improve the
  work-environment?

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New Focus (2006)

• Develop gas stopping and reacceleration
  capability at NSCL
• First in the world from 0.5c to thermal speed
  and back up to 0.06c in less than 1/50 sec
• Theory looks good but a technical first and
  therefore (very?) risky
• Demonstrate leadership over competitor
• After demise of RIA approach NSF with NSCL
  upgrade request (the rest of the world is not
  waiting)
• Step 1 White Paper describing the science and
  technical implementation
• Step 2 Write Planning proposal (before end of
  the year)
• Step 3 get endorsement of national community
  as it develops a new Long Range Plan for Nuclear
  Science

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Desired outcome
ISF (Isotope Science Facility) to replace CCF
in 10 years