THE STANFORD linear accelerator center (SLAC) was given the go-ahead to resume operations in January. The SLAC accelerators were shut down in October after an accident caused serious injury to a contract worker.

Electrician David Simon was installing a circuit breaker next to an electrical panel on October 11 when a 480-volt arc threw him backward and ignited his clothes. He was hospitalized in the burn unit of Valley Medical Center in San Jose for six weeks, and has filed a complaint against the University.

Operations at Stanford’s Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory’s SPEAR3 facility and at the B Factory, SLAC’s high-energy physics facility, were suspended immediately after the accident. The accident has been investigated by the Department of Energy, which contributes significant funding to SLAC; a joint SLAC/DOE team has submitted a corrective action plan to the DOE. In December, University President John Hennessy appointed a panel of scientists and safety specialists to make recommendations for improving worker safety. “The University’s research program should not only be judged by the results of its scientific experiments,” Hennessy said. “It must be judged as well by the care it takes in conducting experiments and the concern it shows for the dedicated personnel who carry out this research.”