Lia Merminga has resigned as director of Fermilab – the US’s premier particle-physics lab. She stepped down yesterday after a turbulent year that saw staff layoffs, a change in the lab’s management contractor and accusations of a toxic atmosphere. Merminga is being replaced by Young-Kee Kim from the University of Chicago, who will serve as interim director until a permanent successor is found. Kim was previously Fermilab’s deputy director between 2006 and 2013.
Tracy Marc, a spokerperson for Fermilab, says that the search for Merminga’s successor has already begun, although without a specific schedule. “Input from Fermilab employees is highly valued and we expect to have Fermilab employee representatives as advisory members on the search committee, just as has been done in the past,” Marc told Physics World. “The search committee will keep the Fermilab community informed about the progress of this search.”
The departure of Merminga, who became Fermilab director in August 2022, was announced by Paul Alivisatos, president of the University of Chicago. The university jointly manages the lab with Universities Research Association (URA), a consortium of research universities, as well as the industrial firms Amentum Environment & Energy, Inc. and Longenecker & Associates.
“Her dedication and passion for high-energy physics and Fermilab’s mission have been deeply appreciated,” Alivisatos said in a statement. “This leadership change will bring fresh perspectives and expertise to the Fermilab leadership team.”
Turbulent times
The reasons for Merminga’s resignation are unclear but Fermilab has experienced a difficult last two years with questions raised about its internal management and external oversight. Last August, a group of anonymous self-styled whistleblowers published a 113-page “white paper” on the arXiv preprint server, asserting that the lab was “doomed without a management overhaul”.
The document highlighted issues such as management cover ups of dangerous behaviour including guns being brought onto Fermilab’s campus and a male employee’s attack on a female colleague. In addition, key experiments such as the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment suffered notable delays. Cost overruns also led to a “limited operations period” with most staff on leave in late August.
In October, the US Department of Energy, which oversees Fermilab, announced a new organization – Fermi Forward Discovery Group – to manage the lab. Yet that decision came under scrutiny given it is dominated by the University of Chicago and URA, which had already been part of the management since 2007. Then a month later, almost 2.5% of Fermilab’s employees were laid off, adding to portray an institution in crisis.
The whistleblowers, who told Physics World that they still stand by their analysis of the lab’s issues, say that the layoffs “undermined Fermilab’s scientific mission” and claim that it sidelined “some of its most accomplished” researchers at the lab. “Meanwhile, executive managers, insulated by high salaries and direct oversight responsibilities, remained unaffected,” they allege.
Born in Greece, Merminga, 65, earned a BSc in physics from the University of Athens before moving to the University of Michigan where she completed an MS and PhD in physics. Before taking on Fermilab’s directorship, she held leadership posts in governmental physics-related institutions in the US and Canada.
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