New UEC Members for 2024

I’m an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at University of California, Davis (one hour’s drive north of the ALS).  I have been a User at synchrotron facilities since my first experiences at the Advanced Light Source as a Ph.D. student, where I collected soft X-ray absorption data (BL’s 7 & 8) to characterize materials for solar energy.  After this, as a postdoc I was a User at NSLS I & II, where a performed ambient pressure XPS experiments, which included the commissioning beamtimes for the X1A1 BL at NSLS II.  My group at UC Davis is a current User at the ALS for VUV photoionization mass spectrometry (BL 9) and at SSRL for hard X-ray EXAFS and XANES measurements. I have also worked at other User facilities at DOE labs, including for cyro STM and time-resolved optical absorption spectroscopy.  Especially through the new, recent work in photoionization at the ALS, which has been so educational for me and my group, I have come to appreciate the breadth of scope and impact of synchrotron science.

Writing this bio prompted me to reflect on those earliest experiments as a student and all the lifelong collaborations I made at that time.  It’s a privilege that I can now bring my own research group to the same beamlines where I worked as a student fifteen years ago. I’m interested in serving on the UEC to assist the team with outreach, so that I can share this kind of experience, and all the professional opportunities that accompany it, with a new generation of researchers.  On the technical side, my work in catalysis and energy conversion bridges the materials and chemical sciences approaches to research.  I believe I can bring an important perspective – at a pivotal time when synchrotron scientists are developing incredible new modes of characterization through operando spectroscopy.   I will use my experience as a User at facilities that enable both the materials and chemical sciences approaches, and as an educator at a large public university, to understand and communicate the differing needs of these communities with the ALS team.

I am an Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering at Navajo Technical University (NTU), Crownpoint, NM. I received M.S degrees in Manufacturing and Engineering & Management and Industrial Engineering from the University of Birmingham, Birmingham-United Kingdom, and Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, respectively. I received my Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Texas Tech University, Lubbock. I was part of the faculty team that secured ABET accreditation for NTU, making NTU the first Tribal University to have ABET accreditation for its engineering degree. I have received funding from NASA, NNSA, and DOE for research on additive manufacturing and engineering education to increase the number of Native Americans with engineering degrees. I am a new ALS user through a recent DOE BES Reaching a New Energy Sciences Workforce (RENEW) project with LBNL, “Controlling Additive Manufacturing Properties of Surfaces (CAMPS).” This will be the first time NTU faculty and students leverage the ALS, and I am excited about this partnership. This project aims to understand how to control the structure and properties of 3D-printed metal alloys and build a collaboration between the ALS and NTU through internships and education. We are working with the ALS to characterize these alloys, for example, with x-ray diffraction and x-ray computed tomography (beamlines 12.3.2 and 8.3.2), and train Native American students in material characterization and analysis. 

My goal in joining the ALS UEC is to increase ALS’s awareness of Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCU) and connections with TCU students and faculty, for example, through targeted outreach and education. As a member of the UEC, I hope to build and sustain collaborations between TCUs and the ALS. I will advocate means to help tribal communities learn about ALS and become an integral part of its users, especially as the ALS transitions through ALS-U and seeks to grow its partnerships to serve a diverse scientific community.

I am an assistant professor in the physics department at Santa Clara University. ALS plays a pivotal role in my research on quantum materials. Prior to my current position, I was a postdoc at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and University of California Berkeley. In my research, I leverage the diverse capabilities of the ALS, including hard X-ray diffraction under high-pressure, magnetic spectroscopy and scattering, and the photoemission technique.  Additionally, I am a public user across other national facilities with neutron and muon sources, and an executive committee member for the American Physics Society’s Topical Group on instrument and measurement science.

With over a decade of experience as a user of public facilities, I am motivated to contribute to the UEC to better serve our community. I’d like to promote the impact of our community via cross-disciplinary research and collaborative experimental techniques. The forthcoming enhancements brought about by the ALS-U project including high coherence and brightness present an exciting opportunity to joint quantum materials research that complements other spectroscopy and microscopy techniques. I hope to increase the general accessibility to a broader user community. Moreover, as an early-career faculty member at an institute in the San Francisco Bay Area with a focus on Research Experiences for Undergraduates, I will also advocate more REU summer research opportunities to inspire and nurture the involvement of young generations in our dynamic community.