Welcome to the new Users’ Executive Committee members for 2020! The ALS Users’ Executive Committee (UEC) is responsible for conveying the concerns and interests of users to ALS management. Each member serves on the UEC for three years, with the exception of the student member, who serves for two years.
Meet the newly elected representatives:
Yingge Du, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
My name is Yingge Du. I am a Senior Research Scientist in the Physical Science Division at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). My research focus is primarily on understanding the structural-property relationships in well-defined epitaxial thin films and heterojunctions.
We have established long-time collaborations with scientists at different synchrotron facilities to characterize the structure and chemistry of our synthesized materials. I have been a user of the ambient pressure XPS (APXPS, 9.3.2), X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS, 8.0.1) beamlines, and am also involved in PNNL’s effort to help build the AMBER (Energy, Catalytic, and Chemical Sciences) beamline (6.0.1) at ALS.
I have had the privilege to collaborate with scientists at ALS, APS, NSLSII, Diamond (UK), and SSLS (Singapore), and understand that many other researchers like me can benefit tremendously from having such access. I fully support the ALS UEC’s mission and will try my best to represent the interests of users from all over the world. One specific plan I want to propose is to reach out to early career scientists who may benefit from using the synchrotron facilities but are either unaware of or have no previous experience.
Stephanie Gilbert-Corder, Advanced Light Source, Berkeley Lab
My main research interest is the study of the electronic and optical properties of surfaces and interfaces with infrared spectroscopic techniques. The development of nanoscale spatial resolution at beamlines 2.4 and 5.4 has significantly expanded advanced materials characterization in the infrared, and I am particularly interested in the nanoscale behavior of systems with strong electron correlations, low dimensional systems, defects and energy conversion systems.
In May of this year, I joined the scientific staff at the ALS as a beamline scientist in the infrared group. As a postdoc, I was a user and experimental lead at the IR beamlines, so I’ve been involved with both sides and feel that I can offer either perspective to discussions of the user experience. My goal is to help make beamtime as productive as possible, and by taking an active role in the UEC, I plan to be a strong advocate for our users.
Hope Michelsen, University of Colorado Boulder
I have been running experiments at the ALS for the past 8 years in an obsessive pursuit to understand high-temperature carbon-particle formation and chemistry. I have had the amazing opportunity to work at Beamlines 9.0.2, 7.3.3, and 9.3.2 with some of the most inspiring scientists in the world who work at these beamlines.
The ALS is a true gift to the scientific community. It would be an honor to help it continue to evolve, especially during this exciting time of ALS upgrades. As part of the UEC, I would like to help the user community participate in the vision and plans for ALS-U. I am also enthusiastic about helping the ALS continue to foster the diverse, inclusive, and scientifically vibrant community I very much appreciate.
I represent the chemistry and energy science communities.
Matthijs A. van Spronsen, Materials Sciences Division, Berkeley Lab
Synchrotrons and beamlines have played an important role in my research (chemistry and physics of surfaces/interfaces) starting as a physics graduate student at the Leiden University, the Netherlands. During that time, I frequented the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (Grenoble, France) to perform surface X-ray diffraction on model catalysts under reaction conditions and went to Elettra Sincrotrone (Trieste, Italy) to perform X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Continuing as a postdoctorate fellow for Cynthia Friend at Harvard University and, later, for Miquel Salmeron at Berkeley Lab, I got involved in ambient-pressure X-ray photoelectron and X-ray absorption spectroscopy to study solid-gas and solid-liquid interfaces. These measurements involve many beamlines at the Advanced Light Source; National Synchrotron Light Source II; ALBA Synchrotron, Spain; and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource. Summarizing, I have been a user at numerous beamlines and synchrotrons, of which the Advanced Light Source is the closest to my heart.
As a member of the ALS Users’ Executive Committee, I would like to improve communication channels between different users groups working on the same instrument. This is especially relevant for the ambient-pressure beamlines, in which the state of the endstation is vital for successful experiments. I would love to be involved in and learn how to organize the ALS users’ meeting. In my view, the most important aspect of the users’ meeting is to combine different fields.
The field I represent is material sciences with a focus on interfaces under realistic conditions.
Ming Yi, Rice University
My academic career was born at the ALS. I was a first year PhD student at Stanford in April of 2008 when I drove up the hill with my mentor and saw the beautiful band structure that came out of the angle-resolved photo-emission beamline for the very first time as well as the beautiful sunset down on the bay and thought to myself, I could do this for life. I’ve been a regular user at the ALS since, and have tried out all the nice places to nap during intense all-nighters around the ring. I recently started my assistant professor position in the physics and astronomy department at Rice University this year. My main research interest is to use and enhance spectroscopy tools to understand exotic emergent electronic phases in quantum materials.
My understanding of the important areas that the UEC can contribute to serving the community is three-fold. First, I believe that with the upcoming upgrade project ALS-U, the UEC will play an important role in establishing and maintaining a platform for the user community to communicate with the ALS management to collaboratively identify the crucial elements for next generation synchrotron experiments. As a UEC member, I would help to organize workshops and zoom meetings where users discuss what their “dream experiments” would be. Second, I will help to enhance the User Meeting to not only showcase the great science that is done at the ALS, but also a channel where we can communicate with and learn from the experiences from other synchrotron communities. Third but not least, I will help to enhance the day-to-day user experience by finding options for users to obtain food at night and on the weekends, and to establish more convenient ways for young nursing parent users to meet their needs while taking beamtime.
Many thanks to the UEC members who are rotating off: Christine Beavers, Jennifer Ciezak-Jenkins, Ethan Crumlin, Kelsey Stoerzinger, and Francesca Toma