The Engin Arik Fund takes shape

25 February 2008

At the initiative of the ATLAS Women’s Network and with the active support of John Ellis, coordinator of the Summer Student Program for non-member states, Peter Jenni and Konstantin Zioutas, spokespersons of the ATLAS and CAST collaborations, respectively, a new fund has been created in the memory of our colleague, Engin Arik, who perished in a plane accident last November along with five other ATLAS and CAST members. For more details on our lost Turkish colleagues, see the special issue of ATLAS e-news. The goal of the fund to keep Engin’s spirit alive by continuing to bring to CERN young, talented Turkish physicists as she had pioneered.

Every year, the Engin Arik Fund will award a fellowship based on academic merit to the most promising Turkish student among the applicants to the CERN Summer Student Program for non-member states. This fellowship will be offered to the most deserving Turkish applicant as determined by the regular selection committee, preferably to work on the ATLAS or CAST experiments. This will enable one extra Turkish student each year to participate in the Summer Student Program, thanks to the additional funding from the Engin Arik Fund. The fellowship will be awarded yearly as long as the Fund continues to have the necessary resources.

Metin Arik, Engin’s husband, has pledged his family’s support to the Fund, and says: “This fellowship should be regarded as a prestigious award and all recipients should feel proud to have been given this award”. His wish is to use this Fellowship both to honor Engin’s memory and to perpetuate her work here at CERN by providing unique opportunities to promising students.

Some institutions have already pledged money to the Fund. The University of Patras, home institute of Konstantin Zioutas, has committed 3000 Euros for the first two years, the ATLAS collaboration will contribute 5500 CHF in each of the next three years, and CERN will also contribute. Other institutes have also been contacted. If your institute wishes to donate some money to the Fund, it is possible to transfer funds to Team Account T273875 using a standard CERN TID form.

Individuals can also give money to the Fund. A bank account has been opened by John Ellis and Pauline Gagnon at the UBS bank at CERN. The account’s IBAN number is CH8800279279289067M1J and its BIC (or SWIFT in the USA) code is UBSWCHZH80A. Anybody from anywhere in the world can transfer money to this account in any currency. All the money collected will go toward the fellowship. We therefore appeal to all of Engin’s colleagues and friends on ATLAS to contribute to the Engin Arik Fund. Konstantin will also solicit contributions from the CAST collaboration.

Colin Barras

 

Pauline Gagnon

Indiana University

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