Justin Evans

I help build anode planes for the DUNE neutrino detector, and I’m getting ready to assemble a factory where we can build 150 of these planes — 6-by-2.5-meter planes of wire. It will probably take us over a year to put the factory together and another four or five years to put the planes together. DUNE is such a big project with so many people from around the world, and it takes that many people to actually discover something new. I’m really enjoying the fact that neutrino physics has become properly international with DUNE. It’s the biggest collaboration on neutrino physics, and that’s an exciting thing to be a part of. Also, you travel a lot and meet a lot of people, and you build up a lot of memories very quickly. When I worked on the MINOS experiment for my PhD, every year we would travel to Minnesota, where the MINOS detector operated. We would have barbecues by the lake, organized by Bill Miller, one of the collaborators. That was quite an experience for a British grad student who had never been to America before. We’d do some kayaking in the evening, sit by the bonfire, watch the fireflies come out. We don’t have fireflies in Britain, and you don’t believe they really exist until you wander off into a dark Minnesota wood and see the air flashing.