The 19th International Conferences on Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics, CHEP 2012 (http://www.chep2012.org/) has ended. Its location this year was in New York City, at about 65 miles from Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), the Tier0 center for the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Tier1 center for the ATLAS. RHIC was the first machine in the world capable of colliding ions as heavy as gold.  RHIC is the only remaining particle accelerator in the US.

This CHEP conference had many "novelties" (beyond the poster sessions Micheal Ernst, facility director for the ATLAS Tier 1 center @ BNL and conference organizer and chair, noted as new format in his opening remarks). Most remarkably as a change for a conference which historically had a "local science" representation and flavor, not a single plenary covered for any aspects of RHIC science nor did one covered for the local computing facility and resources and its contribution to US science. The Advisory Committee had no members representing RHIC science, not a single contribution from RHIC was selected for an oral presentation (all contributions were posters only), not a single member of the scientific community from RHIC were asked to help with chairing any session. In other words, in all aspects of the conference, RHIC science was not represented and set aside. Another novel aspect was for the conference to cover communication via Twitter and FaceBook  feeds. 

Remains for the community to reflect on whether this "novel format" best benefits US science and/or benefit anyone. Certainly, the impact of outreach via social media beyond Web sites would need to be carefully evaluated.

Related links:

• CHEP 2012 web site
• CHEP 2012 conference program
• CHEP 2012 FaceBook
• CHEP 2012 Twitter