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Updates & Announcements

In Memoriam: Al Thompson, Retired Berkeley Lab Senior Scientist

With sadness we announce the recent passing of our retired colleague Al Thompson on May 30, 2020, after several years of medical challenges. At the Lab, he worked on x-ray detectors and applications in energy dispersive x-ray analysis before transitioning into synchrotron applications. He will be missed by his colleagues at the ALS who will remember him as a capable scientist and diligent worker. Read more »

Members of ALS Community Honored

Several members of the ALS community have recently been recognized for their work. Congratulations to Sihai Yang, Martin Schröder, Jeffrey Long, and James Holton! Read more »

Register for the 2020 User Meeting

For the first time, the ALS User Meeting will be held virtually—all the science you come for, from the comfort of your own home! Register for free by 7:00 PM (PDT) on Monday, August 24, to receive all the Zoom details. Read more »

User Town Hall to Address Access and Beamtime

The ALS is planning a town hall for users in July to address the facility’s strategy moving forward for access and beamtime allocation. We’d like to provide you the information we have at this time, as well as hear from you. Details for the town hall will be announced soon in a separate email. In the meantime, please let us know your questions by submitting them to this anonymous form.

May 2020 Message from the User Office

Berkeley Lab is planning to gradually bring staff back onsite, consistent with federal, state, and local guidance. These plans will begin on June 1 with a small on-site pilot group. We expect a few limited activities at the ALS to be part of this pilot. Once the ALS schedule for the 2020-2 cycle has been published, we will develop a detailed plan for allocating beamtime to proposals. We are exploring how each beamline can set up remote operations to support user experiments while staff maintain social distancing. Read more »

May 2020 Message from the UEC

We are working on making the 2020 User Meeting, which will now take place as an online meeting on August 25–28, as rich and productive as our user meetings normally are. We will announce more details over the next few months. If you wish to nominate someone for one of the awards below, please remember the deadline is June 1. Read more »

2020 User Meeting Will Be Held Online

Our UEC is continually adapting to the rapidly changing status quo as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. After careful considerations and discussions with ALS management, we have decided to change the format of the ALS User Meeting 2020 to a virtual (online) meeting. Read more »

Shelter-in-Place Message from Director Steve Kevan

A far cry from the familiar, bustling ALS, our facility is running at minimal operations and the majority of our staff is working from home. I speak for the entire ALS staff when I write that we miss all of you, and hope you are healthy and safe. Read more »

April 2020 Message from the User Office: Proposal Updates

Plans will be developed to phase in research at the ALS, becoming more robust as the COVID-19 timeline plays out. In the meantime, the ALS user office database is tracking the lost beamtime for each proposal. Users can see this information by viewing their proposals in ALSHub and noting the discrepancy between allocated and scheduled beamtime. Read more »