LLNL’s Luis Zepeda-Ruiz wins prestigious award from American Association for Crystal Growth

At a conference held this summer, the American Association for Crystal Growth (AACG) recognized Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientist Luis Zepeda-Ruiz with its Gentile Service Award for “long and meritorious service to the crystal growth community.”

Named after Tony Gentile, who spent many years serving AACG, this honor has only been bestowed four times in the history of the association. Before his passing, Gentile commissioned five hand-crafted clocks — representing the gift of time — to be part of the award.

“It truly is a great honor to receive this award,” said Zepeda-Ruiz. “It is a recognition for my sustained contributions and longstanding dedication to the organization and my strong commitment to bring young people into the area of crystal growth.”

Zepeda-Ruiz has been working in crystal growth since his start at LLNL. One of his first projects at the Laboratory focused on the kinetics of surface steps in potassium dihydrogen phosphate crystals, which are a crucial component of the National Ignition Facility. He attended his first AACG conference around that time and began organizing speakers and sessions a couple years later.

From there, Zepeda-Ruiz’s involvement in the AACG only grew as he became program chair and led fundraising efforts for the national meeting. In 2008, Zepeda-Ruiz was elected to chair the AACG-West conference, and in 2009, he was elected to the AACG board. By 2015, Zepeda-Ruiz was appointed to the AACG executive office and began serving as treasurer for the association.

At LLNL, Zepeda-Ruiz has participated in a wide range of projects related to material behavior and performance. He focuses on morphology and surface evolution during crystal growth, phase transitions, defect evolution and nucleation phenomena. Throughout this work, he expressed gratitude for mentors George Gilmer and Alex Chernov, who he described as two of the greatest contributors to crystal growth science.

Zepeda-Ruiz hopes to make the same impact as a mentor himself. In partnership with industry and LLNL’s Materials Science Division, he created a program that brings 10–15 students to the West-AACG meeting every other year.

“Besides my activities as board member and treasurer, I am focused on creating scholarships to fund travel and participation in scientific conferences for young students,” he said.