2026 RHIC/AGS Annual Users' Meeting & RHIC Science Symposium

11 May 2026, 09:00 → 15 May 2026, 18:00 US/Eastern

Anders Knospe (Lehigh University), Daniel Brandenburg (Ohio State University), Peter Steinberg (BNL)

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2026 RHIC/AGS Annual Users' Meeting

The Annual RHIC & AGS Users' Meeting will be held May 11–13, 2026 followed immediately on May 14 & 15th by a special RHIC Symposium commemorating the end of RHIC and celebrating 25 years of discovery. The meeting will highlight the latest results from the PHENIX, STAR and sPHENIX experiments and provide an outlook with the future programs at RHIC and the EIC. Workshops that will be held on Monday, May 11, and Tuesday, May 12, will enable more in-depth discussions of the following topics:

• Jets & Hard Probes
• Ultraperipheral & Electromagnetic Processes
• Nasa Space Radiation Laboratory
• Fixed-target@EIC
• AI/ML
• Baryon Junction & Stopping

 

There will be an in-person poster session on Tuesday, May 12, Plenary sessions will be held on Tuesday, May 12 (afternoon), and Wednesday, May 13. Reports on operation status from the sPHENIX and STAR experiments and highlights from PHENIX, sPHENIX and STAR experiments, EIC detectors, a report from the Department of Energy and award ceremonies will be held during the plenary sessions.

RHIC Science Symposium

The RHIC Symposium will be on Thursday, May 14 and Friday, May 15 with special speakers and programming to commemorate the end of RHIC operations, to celebrate the 25+ years of discovery science accomplished, and to kick-off the transition to the Electron Ion Collider Era as we look forward to decades more discovery science. 

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Event ID:  E000007621

Note: This meeting falls under Exemption E. Meetings such as Advisory Committee and Federal Advisory Committee meetings. Solicitation/Funding Opportunity Announcement Review Board meetings, peer review/objective review panel meetings, evaluation panel/board meetings, and program kick-off and review meetings (including those for grants and contracts) are open to the public.

Monday 11 May

09:00 → 12:00 Workshop: AI/ML I

09:00 Setup

09:05 The EIC-Beam AI Collaboration: Preparing Machine Learning for the Electron-Ion Collider

Speaker: Georg Hoffstaetter (BNL)

09:30 ePIC ML Algorithms

Speaker: Cristiano Fanelli (W&M)

09:55 Coffee Break

10:30 AI in Data Preservation

Speaker: Alexandr Prozorov

10:55 STAR RAG-based chatbot

Speaker: Ankush Reddy Kanuganti (BNL)

11:20 AL Surrogate Modeling for Fast Simulation of the Hydrodynamic Evolution of the Quark-Fluon Plasma

Speaker: Seungjun Lee (BNL)

09:00 → 12:00 Workshop: Baryon Junction & Stopping I

09:00 Current status of the baryon junction

Speakers: Dmitri Kharzeev (Stony Brook University and BNL), Prof. Dmitri Kharzeev (Stony Brook University and BNL)

10:00 Generalized parton distributions and their implications for observables relevant to baryon junction dynamics

Speaker: Simonetta Liuti (university of virginia)

10:30 Coffee Break

11:00 Probing gluon density via deep inelastic scattering, and its implications on baryon junctions

Speaker: Prithwish Tribedy (BNL)

11:30 Flavor-independent rapidity slope in baryon transport

Speakers: Zhangbu Xu (Kent State University), Zhangbu Xu (BNL)

09:00 → 12:00 Workshop: Fixed-target@EIC

09:00 → 12:00 Workshop: Jets & Hard Probes

09:00 Recent Measurements at the LHC

Speaker: Hannah Bossi (Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT))

09:30 Jets in Heavy-Ion Collisions (Theory)

Speaker: João Barata (CERN)

10:00 Recent Measurements from sPHENIX

Speaker: Hanpu Jiang (Columbia University)

10:25 Coffee Break

10:40 Recent Measurements from STAR

Speaker: Isaac Mooney (Yale University)

11:05 Recent Measurements in Small Systems at the LHC and RHIC

Speaker: Christopher McGinn (Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT))

11:35 Jets at the Electron-Ion Collider (Theory)

Speaker: Felix Ringer (YITP Stony Brook)

12:00 → 14:00 No Host Lunch

14:00 → 15:15 Workshop: AI/ML II

Afternoon I

14:00 sPHENIX CycleGAN

Speaker: Shuhang Li (Columbia University)

14:25 Compression Algorithms

Speaker: Yi Huang (Brookhaven national lab)

14:50 sPHENIX Foundation Models

Speaker: David Park (Columbia University)

14:00 → 17:00 Workshop: Baryon Junction & Stopping II

Afternoon I

14:00 Measuring baryon production at HERA, and its potential on baryon junction

Speakers: Henry Klest (Argonne National Laboratory), Henry Klest (Argonne National Laboratory)

14:30 Probing the Baryon Junction at the CLAS12 Experiment

Speaker: Wenliang Li (Stony Brook University CFNS)

15:00 Finding the baryon number within the proton

Speaker: Spencer Klein (LBNL)

14:00 → 17:00 Workshop: Fixed-target@EIC

Afternoon I

Tuesday 12 May

09:00 → 12:00 Workshop: Nasa Space Radiation Laboratory

2nd Morning session

09:00 → 12:00 Workshop: UPC & Electromagnetic Processes

2nd Morning session

09:00 Session Introduction : Ultra-Peripheral Collisions

09:30 Measurements of EM-probes at PHENIX and sPHENIX

Speaker: Mariia Mitrankova (Stony Brook University)

10:00 Measurements of Vector mesons in Ultra-Peripheral Collisions at STAR

Speaker: Xihe Han (Ohio State University)

10:30 Coffee Break

11:00 Recent ALICE UPC Measurements

Speaker: Daniel Tapia Takaki (University of Kansas)

11:30 Nuclear imaging efforts at EIC

Speaker: Rongrong Ma (Brookhaven National Laboratory)

12:00 → 14:00 No Host Lunch

14:00 → 17:00 AUM Plenary I

14:00 Welcome Remarks from the Lab Director

14:10 Opening Remarks from ALD - Looking to the Future

Speaker: Prof. Abhay Deshpande (Stony Brook University & BNL)

14:35 C-AD Report

Speaker: Travis Shrey (BNL)

14:55 Group Picture

15:05 Coffee

15:30 STAR Run Report

Speaker: Tristan Protzman (Lehigh University)

16:00 sPHENIX Run Report

Speaker: Ron Belmont (University of North Carolina Greensboro)

16:30 Workshop Report: Jets & Hard Probes

Speakers: Yeonju Go (Brookhaven National Laboratory), Yeonju Go (Brookhaven National Laboratory)

17:00 → 19:00 Reception & Poster Session

Wednesday 13 May

09:00 → 12:00 Plenary II

09:00 STAR Physics Highlights

Speaker: Richard Seto (UCR)

09:25 sPHENIX Physics Highlights

Speaker: Tanner Mengel (University of Colorado, Boulder)

09:50 PHENIX Physics Highlights

Speaker: Iurii Mitrankov (Stony Brook University)

10:15 Coffee Break

10:30 DOE Report

Speaker: Sharon Stephenson

10:55 NSF Report

Speaker: Allena Opper

11:20 Workshop Report: AI/ML

Speaker: Cameron Dean (MIT)

11:40 Workshop Report: Fixed Target @ EIC

Speaker: Charles Naim (Stony Brook University)

12:00 → 14:00 No Host Lunch

14:00 → 17:45 Plenary II

14:00 Workshop Report: NSRL

14:20 Workshop Report: UPC & Electromagnetic Processes

14:40 Workshop Report: Baryon Junction & Stopping

Speakers: Chun Tsang (Kent State University), Chun Yuen Tsang (Kent State University)

15:00 Coffee Break

15:15 EIC, ePIC and the future physics

15:40 Sambamurti Award

15:45 Merit and Thesis Awards

15:55 Poster Award

16:10 Coffee Break

16:20 Sambamurti Lecture

Thursday 14 May

09:00 → 12:15 RHIC Symposium

09:00 Lab Director's Welcome

09:10 T.D. Lee Memorial

Status of field before RHIC

Speaker: Shoji NAGAMIYA (remote) (RIKEN)

09:25 The status of the field before RHIC

Speakers: Axel Drees, Axel Drees (Stony Brook University)

10:00 Making RHIC Possible: Reflections on the Machine

Speaker: Thomas Roser (BNL)

10:30 Coffee Break

10:45 Spokesperson Talk: STAR

Speaker: Timothy Hallman (Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Physics)

10:55 Spokesperson Talk: PHENIX

Speaker: Prof. William Zajc (Columbia University)

11:05 Spokesperson Talk: PHOBOS

11:15 Spokesperson Talk: BRAHMS

Speaker: Flemming Videbaek (BNL)

11:25 Panel Discussion

11:55 David Gross: Reflections on RHIC

12:15 → 14:00 Lunch

14:00 → 16:45 RHIC Symposium

14:00 The QGP as we understand it 20+ years later

Speaker: Berndt Mueller (faculty@duke.edu;member@duke.edu)

14:40 Impact of RHIC on understanding the nucleon spin

15:10 Coffee Break

15:30 Impact of RHIC on the LHC (Science and social impact)

Speaker: John Harris (Yale University)

16:00 Reflections from past NPP Associate Laboratory Directors

Speakers: Abhay Deshpande (Stony Brook University), Prof. Abhay Deshpande (Stony Brook University & BNL), Berndt Mueller (BNL), Berndt Mueller (faculty@duke.edu;member@duke.edu), Haiyan Gao (Duke University), Haiyan Gao (BNL)

16:45 → 21:30 RHIC Symposium: BSA Distinguished Lecture & Banquet

16:45 Refreshments

17:00 BSA Distinguished Lecture

Speakers: Barbara Jacak (UC Berkeley and LBNL), Barbara Jacak (faculty@berkeley.edu;employee@berkeley.edu;member@berkeley.edu)

18:30 Host Dinner

Friday 15 May

09:00 → 12:00 RHIC Symposium

09:00 Sam Aronson Memorial

Creating the RHIC machine

Speakers: William Zajc (Columbia University), Prof. William Zajc (Columbia University)

09:15 Completing the sPHENIX Scientific Mission

Speakers: Megan Connors (Georgia State University), Megan Connors (Georgia State University RBRC)

09:40 Completing the STAR Scientific Mission

Speaker: Frank Geurts (Rice University)

10:05 Coffee Break

10:20 Completing the PHENIX Scientific Mission

Speaker: Yasuyuki Akiba (RIKEN)

10:45 Completing the RHIC Scientific Mission (Theory Perspectives)

Speaker: Dr Bjoern Schenke (BNL)

11:10 Reflections on the success and impact of the RBRC

12:00 → 14:00 Lunch (Hosted)

14:00 → 18:00 RHIC Symposium

14:00 Bjoerken Memorial

14:15 Scientific Origins of the Electron Ion Collider

Speaker: Richard Milner (MIT)

14:50 From RHIC to EIC: Connections between RHIC and EIC science

Speaker: Rosi Reed (Lehigh University)

15:15 Coffee Break

15:35 Making the EIC possible, Machine perspectives

Speaker: Sergei Nagaitsev (BNL)

16:10 Lessons from RHIC in designing ePIC

Speaker: John Lajoie (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

16:45 Early Career Panel

Speakers: Gian Michele Innocenti, Zhoudunming Tu (BNL)