One way the Ferdows facilities are used is to support off-site meetings where collaborators can step away from their daily routines and focus deeply on big-picture strategy, out-of-the-box thinking, and team-building. The serene and secluded nature of the gardens facilitates strategy development, setting major goals and milestones for the upcoming year or grant cycle, talking through complex research roadblocks without daily interruptions, sharing findings and unifying different lab groups or departments.
Retreats also provide junior researchers and students a chance to present and network in an informal setting.
Our first retreat took place on August 2, 2026. The participants were from Howard University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Diamond Research Group, and Cubic Carbon Ceramics. The Topic was “In-situ Diamond Growth Experiments on Brookhaven’s Beam Line.