An Audio Interview with Ms. Jana Thomson, Conference Facilitator & Scientific Publications Coordinator, TRIUMF.

It was a great pleasure to catch-up with Jana Thomson at the TRIUMF hosted UCANS11 Conference, February 24-28, 2025 in North Vancouver, BC, Canada.  I have been connecting with Jana at particle accelerator conferences for a number of decades now.  Jana’s knowledge regarding the significant “behind the scenes” work that is necessary to host a conference is fascinating and deep.  The following interview contains many pearls of wisdom regarding this world of hosting scientific conferences and publishing the results.

The link to the audio interview follows and below the link are time stamps for each question, and a few words towards Jana’s answer.

Question 1 (00:00): What is your job and role?

Welcome to this conference …

Question 2 (01:20): What is happening with conference costs and attendance?

The stability of attendance has changed …

Question 3 (03:00): How has geopolitics affected conferences?

For example, Russian attendees have been lost at this time …

Question 4 (05:02): What is the fiscal situation for conferences?

It is horrible … a contract is signed, but it is very difficult to predict how many will attend …

Question 5 (09:40): What is JACoW?

Our job is to publish your conference proceedings …

Question 6 (13:20): What is your title?

Conference Facilitator & Scientific Publications Coordinator, TRIUMF. JACoW Coordinator and Editor.

Question 7 (15:10): Now you are able through AI to identify bogus papers?

Yes, there was a recent case of this …

Question 8 (18:20): Is there anything from your childhood that is carried forward to your present self?

This wasn’t my plan.  I was only going to work at TRIUMF a short time …

Question 9 (20:07): Conferences are sometimes held in interesting places.  What are some examples?

The majority are close to the lab, but some are in Victoria, or Whistler …

I have known Jana for close to 40 years now.  She is a wealth of information, and a rock star in terms of hosting and publishing a scientific conference.  I wish her continued success in her career!