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The University of Wisconsin-Madison Physical Sciences Laboratory(PSL), is located near Lake Kegonsa, south of Madison. Now more than 40 years old, PSL has diversified and is now considered not only a highly valued provider of engineering and instrumentation solutions for the University of Wisconsin, but also to public institutions and private businesses worldwide. Since the beginning, PSL has completed over 6,000 projects large and small and has served an inimitable role in such storied experiments as the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Additionally, PSL has worked on many smaller projects related to physics and engineering, as well as medical, veterinary, geological, astronomical, biological sciences and more.

History
PSL has its roots firmly grounded in the history of electron accelerators. Starting in September 1954 when fourteen universities formed the Midwestern Universities Research Association (MURA). Their purpose was to recommend a design for a high-energy accelerator that was to be built in the Midwest. A study group of High Energy Physicists from these MURA institutions had been working together on theory and design since 1953 with support from the Office of Naval Research, National Science Foundation, Atomic Energy Commission and their own universities.

The group had invented several fixed field accelerators and built one at the University of Michigan. In June of 1966, the MURA group disbanded with some of the members moving to Fermi National Laboratory. It was at this point that the University of Wisconsin renamed the group, Physical Sciences Laboratory and gave it a charter to provide advanced technology services for the University.

PSL initially used the knowledge and skills of the MURA staff to operate the Tantalus electron storage ring—famously known as the first-ever storage ring developed for research users—and to provide large mechanical and electronic systems for High Energy Physics. Gradually as new staff members were added and new contacts made, the PSL knowledge base widened and a number of University of Wisconsin departments used PSL for their projects. The Tantalus group secured funding from the National Science Foundation and gradually grew as a separate center from PSL, eventually evolving into the Synchrotron Radiation Center a national research facility with the storage ring still in operation today.