John Peoples Jr. (January 22, 1933 – June 25, 2025) was an American physicist who served as

Fermilab Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located in Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy United States Department of Energy National Labs, national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle phys ...

's third director, served as director of the

Sloan Digital Sky Survey The Sloan Digital Sky Survey or SDSS is a major multi-spectral imaging and spectroscopic redshift survey using a dedicated 2.5-m wide-angle optical telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, United States. The project began in 2000 a ...

, and oversaw the shutdown of the

Superconducting Super Collider The Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), nicknamed Desertron, was a particle accelerator complex under construction from 1991 to 1993 near Waxahachie, Texas, United States. Its planned ring circumference was with an energy of 20 TeV per proto ...

Early life and education

John Peoples Jr. was born in New York City on January 22, 1933. After graduating from

Staten Island Academy Staten Island Academy is a coeducational, college-preparatory day school located on a campus in Staten Island, New York City, United States. Founded in 1884 by Anton Methfessel, it is the oldest independent school on Staten Island, and is the o ...

in 1950, he received a BSEE from the

Carnegie Institute of Technology Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

in 1955. He worked as an engineer at Martin-Marietta Corporation until 1959, when he entered

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

Research and teaching

Peoples received his PhD in physics in 1966 and remained at Columbia as assistant professor of physics until 1969, when he began teaching at

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

Career at Fermilab

Peoples joined Fermilab as a physicist in 1971, eventually becoming head of the Proton Area and head of the Research Division in 1975. In 1981, Peoples became project manager of Tevatron I, which transformed the

Tevatron The Tevatron was a circular particle accelerator (active until 2011) in the United States, at the Fermilab, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (called ''Fermilab''), east of Batavia, Illinois, and was the highest energy particle collider unt ...

from a fixed target accelerator to a proton-antiproton collider, and oversaw the construction of the Antiproton Source. Peoples left Fermilab briefly from 1987 to 1988 to assist the Central Design Group for the

Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL, Berkeley Lab) is a federally funded research and development center in the hills of Berkeley, California, United States. Established in 1931 by the University of California (UC), the laboratory is spo ...

. When he returned to Fermilab in the fall of 1988, he became deputy director of the lab. After

Leon M. Lederman Leon Max Lederman (July 15, 1922 – October 3, 2018) was an American experimental physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988, along with Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger, for research on neutrinos. He also received the Wolf Pr ...

stepped down from the Fermilab directorship, Peoples became director on July 1, 1989. During Peoples's time as Fermilab's director, the lab increased the Tevatron's luminosity by a factor of 20 between 1990 and 1994, which made it possible for Fermilab's experiments CDF and D0 to discover the

top quark The top quark, sometimes also referred to as the truth quark, (symbol: t) is the most massive of all observed elementary particles. It derives its mass from its coupling to the Higgs field. This coupling is very close to unity; in the Standard ...

. He also oversaw the construction of Fermilab's Main Injector from proposal in 1990 to completion in 1999, expanded the lab's work in experimental astrophysics, and modernized the lab's computing infrastructure to ensure it could handle the increasing demands of high-energy physics data. He stepped down from his position as Fermilab director in June 1999.

Other positions

In addition to his work at Fermilab, Peoples managed the shutdown of Superconducting Super Collider between 1993 and 1994, served as chairman of the International Committee for Future Accelerators, a working group of the

International Union of Pure and Applied Physics The International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP; ) is an international non-governmental organization whose mission is to assist in the worldwide development of physics, to foster international cooperation in physics, and to help in the ...

, from 1993 to 1997, and was director of the

from June 1998 to June 2003. He stepped down from his position as Fermilab director in June 1999 and retired from the lab in 2005. From 2003 to 2010, he served as director of the

Dark Energy Survey The Dark Energy Survey (DES) is an astronomical survey designed to constrain the properties of dark energy. It uses images taken in the near-ultraviolet, Visible spectrum, visible, and near-infrared to measure the expansion of the universe using ...

. The

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...

awarded him the Robert R. Wilson Prize for Achievement in the Physics of Particle Accelerators in 2010.

Death

Peoples died on June 25, 2025, at the age of 92.

References

External links

John Peoples's scientific publications
on

INSPIRE-HEP INSPIRE-HEP is an open access digital library for the field of high energy physics (HEP). It is the successor of the Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System (SPIRES) database, the main literature database for high energy physics since the 1 ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Peoples, John 1933 births 2025 deaths 21st-century American physicists People associated with Fermilab Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Cornell University faculty Carnegie Mellon University alumni Staten Island Academy alumni People associated with IUPAP