Accelerator operators: pillars of particle physics

It takes years of on-the-job training to learn the ins and outs of particle accelerator operation. Despite the fact that accelerator operators are essential to keeping an accelerator laboratory afloat, the role is largely unknown outside of physics--even to the people who wind up in the job. "It was a kind of position that I wasn't familiar with or knew even existed before," says Judah O'Neil, who for the last two years has worked at the US Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Labor...