Contact: Shan Wu, UEC Chair
Welcome from the 2026 ALS Users’ Executive Committee (UEC)! As the group dedicated to representing the voice of the ALS user community, our primary role is to bridge the gap between your scientific needs and the operational realities of ALS management. This year, we are thrilled to welcome five new UEC members: Alex Ditter, Baran Eren, Harry Lisabeth, Brandy Stewart, and Simruthi Subramanian. We also extend our thanks to Quentin Williams, Sophie Morley, Tamas Varga, Leonid Sheps, Aidan Coffey, and Alexander Baker for their outstanding service as they rotate off the committee.
The year of 2026 is a crucial “bridge year.” After a long user cycle in the first half of the year, the ALS will shut down for a power upgrade the second half of the year. The last user operations will take place in 2027 before the onset of the ALS-U dark time in the second half of the year. During our first UEC meeting in January 2026, our committee sat down with ALS leadership and management team to discuss the updates, challenges, and opportunities this transition presents. We are actively focusing on a few critical questions: How do we communicate effectively with users as we approach the dark time? How can we best keep the community engaged and supported during the dark time? During the meeting, we received the latest updates from Interim ALS-U Project Director Dimitri Argyriou and Interim ALS Director Andreas Scholl. Over the past year, the ALS-U project has developed a new project cost and schedule baseline and is awaiting approval from DOE. As your UEC, we are committed to maintaining a transparent and effective communication channel with ALS management. We advocate for maximizing users’ beamtime and promoting channels that keep users and beamline scientists connected throughout the dark time.
Another major milestone for our community this year is the upcoming Joint Users’ Meeting with the SSRL and LCLS light sources, scheduled for September 20–25. This joint format is a new model for both the UEC and ALS management in recent decades. We envision this meeting as a vital “bridge event.” We hope to help ALS users find temporary research homes at SSRL and LCLS during the shutdown, while simultaneously showcasing the transformative future capabilities of ALS-U to ensure our community returns stronger than ever after returning. The UECs from all three facilities are working collaboratively to strengthen interfacility collaboration. We are heavily focused on promoting integrated science and keeping the community connected through joint workshops, awards, and keynote talks. Please share your proposals for workshops, tutorials, and speakers by March 13!
Suggest User Meeting Speakers and Workshops
While the ALS-U dark time presents undeniable challenges, it is also a tremendous opportunity to incubate new scientific ideas and influence the development of advanced beamlines utilizing this fourth-generation synchrotron light source. We are here for you. If you have any ideas, concerns, suggestions, or questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us by email at alsuec@lbl.gov or via our anonymous feedback form here.