Saturday Morning Physics

Fall 2026 session begins on Saturday, September 12th through Saturday, November 21st.

Fall 2026 will also include three off-site lectures for students. Off-site lecture information will be shared with students closer to the impacted dates.

Lectures are held 9 a.m.-noon Central Time at Fermilab’s Wilson Hall in Batavia, Il. All lectures begin promptly at 9:00 a.m. We recommend that you be in your seat by 8:50 a.m. The lectures are two hours long, with a 10-minute break. Tours and Q&A sessions start at about 11:00 a.m., with everything wrapping up at around noon.

The program is open to high school students in public, private, or parochial schools. Home-schooled students with high school standing are also welcome. Students are expected to attend in-person.

It is helpful to have had a high school physics course and a couple of years of algebra before participating, but these are not required.

A unique e-mail address is required to complete the application.

Gray Putnam, Co-Director

My name is Gray Putnam, I’m a postdoctoral Lederman fellow at Fermilab. My research concerns neutrinos: fundamental, sub-atomic particles that hold the key to learning new fundamental physics beyond our current understanding of the “Standard Model”. Before my role at Fermilab, I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, where I received my Ph.D. in physics. I’ve been living in and around Chicago for 10 years now. Over that time, I’ve been enthused by the positive role Fermilab plays in the Chicagoland community. I’ve heard so many stories from people who know the lab from a school trip they took as a student, or who have a family member with a connection to the facility. My hope is for Saturday Morning Physics to be a part of our outreach to the community – by educating students both about science broadly, as well as the cutting-edge, fundamental physics research we do at Fermilab.