The 2018 ALS User Meeting Awards were presented on Wednesday, October 3, 2018.
The David A. Shirley Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement at the ALS went to Pupa Gilbert, “for her development of polarization-dependent imaging contrast mapping to image the orientation of carbonate nanocrystals in marine biominerals.”
David Shirley was a Professor of Chemistry at UC Berkeley and Director of LBNL from 1980 to 1989, and was instrumental in having the Advanced Light Source built. He is now retired from the lab.
Sponsored by the ALS.
The Klaus Halbach Award for Innovative Instrumentation at the ALS was awarded to David Shapiro, Rich Celestre, Kasra Nowrouzi, Bjoern Enders, Young-Sang Yu, Lee Yang, Hari Krishnan, Stefano Marchesini, and the Science IT-HPCS group led by Susan James, “for the development of the microscopy endstation at the COSMIC beamline featuring an ultra-stable x-ray microscope, computational methods for data reconstruction, and a high-speed data acquisition system.”
Klaus Halbach was a senior staff scientist at LBNL who pioneered the development of undulators using permanent magnets, and other innovations in accelerator physics. Even though he retired from LBNL in 1991, he remained active in lab projects and student training until his death in 2000.
Sponsored by Aerotech.
The Tim Renner User Services Award for Outstanding Support to the ALS User Communitywas awarded to Robert Gassaway, “for his longstanding commitment to simultaneously supporting the ALS user community and advancing electrical safety at the ALS.”
Tim Renner was a beamline scientist at the ALS who died at an early age, and who during his career touched everyone that knew him with his caring attitude to others and his larger-than-life personality. This award recognizes the services of others across the ALS organization who, like Tim, have made outstanding contributions to the ALS User Community.
Sponsored by the ALS.
The Neville Smith Student Poster Award, First Prize, went to Charles Schurman for the poster, “Osteocytes may be responsible for compounding bone quality defects in age and chronic kidney disease.”
Second Prize: Jenn Nill, “Using synchrotron FTIR to evaluate the evolution of cellulose properties throughout enzymatic hydrolysis for biofuels and chemicals.”
Third Prize: Connor Yen, “Spatial distribution of thermal pressure in a laser-heated diamond anvil cell: a modeling and synchrotron X-ray diffraction study” and Miela Gross, “Tomographic imaging of expanding pore structures in starch materials.”
Neville Smith was the Scientific Director for the ALS from 1994 until his death in 2006. He was known not only for his scientific expertise, particularly in photoemission spectroscopy, but also for his wicked wit. As a great supporter of young scientists, his contribution is acknowledged by the naming of the Student Poster Award in his honor, beginning in 2014.
Sponsored by the ALS.
