Particle physics

Warner secured employment in the Accelerator Division of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (often known as Fermilab), Batavia, just outside Chicago, Illinois,^[4][1] where he had been working 26 years by early 2021.^[5] He currently works on the Proton Improvement Plan II, one of Fermilab's major projects.^[6]

Warner also works as a mentor for internees,^[7] and has been a member of the steering body at times since the early 1980s of Fermilab's inclusive Summer Internships in Science and Technology (SIST) program, the longest-running of the Department of Energy National Laboratory system's internship programs.^[8] As of 2021, he chairs this program.^[5]

Oil spill cleanup technology

The US Department of Energy sought input from the scientists of the national laboratories as it struggled to deal with the cleanup required after the Deepwater Horizon event. With his wife's encouragement, Warner devised and tested an approach involving magnetite and booms which, with Fermilab support, he patented.^[1] The technique has been described as especially environmentally friendly, as magnetite is naturally occurring,^[9] and can be largely captured and reused.^[4] It has been mentioned in a range of magazines, including Scientific American^[10] and Popular Science.^[11] Warner was a speaker at a TEDx conference in Naperville, near Chicago, in 2015.^[12]

As of 2019, the technology, which was elaborated as "electromagnetic boom and MOP",^[13] was being scaled up for commercial use by a company licensed by Fermilab and led by Warner.^[14]

Warner's idea was an inspiration for Irish student scientist Fionn Ferreira in his invention of a method for cleaning microplastics from the oceans.^[15]