A particle accelerator still runs on people

Pradeep Nair has written firmware for heart devices, run technology for an Emmy-winning animation studio, and helped a university raise money. Now he runs the computers behind Canada’s particle accelerator. “I’m kind of a weird little boomerang in the research world,” says Nair. The boomerang has landed at TRIUMF, Canada’s particle accelerator centre, an independent lab on the campus of the University of British Columbia (UBC). The lab runs several accelerators that speed subatomic particles up and drive them into targets. Some of what comes out is rare isotopes, unstable materials that barely exist in nature. Physicists use them to study how matter works. TRIUMF also produces medical isotopes, the kind hospitals use to find and treat disease. Nair is TRIUMF’s chief information officer. The role also puts privacy and cybersecurity in his hands, at a not-for-profit owned by a consortium of Canadian universities, with about 600 staff and 1,200 visiting researchers, he…