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Forensic scientist wins 'outstanding' early career award
A chemist who is the director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) Forensic Science Center is the recipient of the 2020 “Outstanding Early Career Achievement in Forensic Science Award.” The award, given to LLNL’s Audrey Williams, is presented annually by the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) Past Presidents Council. This year’s award will be…
PLS postdocs shine at Research Slam! competition
On October 29, 2019, twelve Lawrence Livermore postdocs took to the stage, each with three slides and three minutes to answer the question: “Why is your research important?” The presentations, part of a yearly competition known as the Research Slam!, were a culmination of months of development, training, and practice. The 2019 program kicked off with seminars about…
Belof elected Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences
Jon Belof, a group leader in MSD and a physicist at LLNL since 2010, has been elected a Kavli Fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS). As a recently elected fellow, Jon was invited to attend the NAS Frontiers of Science symposium in Irvine, California, the academy’s premiere activity for distinguished young scientists. Here, he presented his research on non…
Energy Secretary honors Lab scientist's contributions to stockpile stewardship
Secretary of Energy Rick Perry recognized Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) chemist Bill McLean with a Secretary’s Achievement Award Wednesday in recognition of "pioneering technical contributions that have led to significant advancements in science-based stockpile stewardship." The Secretary’s Honor Awards are bestowed on individuals who have a singular…
Five researchers named to '40 Under 40' list
Five Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers join an eclectic group of entrepreneurs, writers, executives, philanthropists and more on Diablo Magazine’s annual "40 Under 40" list, which recognizes young professionals in the East Bay who are leading the charge in their fields. Louisa Pickworth, an experimental physicist and group leader in the Physics…
Victory Through Annihilation: Jason Brodsky’s Neutrinos that Saved the Universe
Jason Brodsky says his work is like “looking for a candle in a raging inferno.” But the Lawrence Livermore physicist believes finding that “candle” could be the key to understanding existence itself. Brodsky’s specialty is rare-event detection, both during his Princeton graduate work on dark matter and his current postdoctoral research at LLNL, in which he searches for…
Learning to love science from gazing at planets
The moment Louisa Pickworth saw the rings of Saturn through her father’s backyard telescope, she knew she wanted to become a scientist to learn "more and more and more." Today, Pickworth, 32, is one of LLNL’s heralded young physicists for her work developing cutting-edge X-ray diagnostics to help scientists learn more about ultrahigh energy physics and inertial confinement…
Cohen honored with computational plasma physics award
Retiree Bruce Cohen (PHYS) has been selected as the recipient of the 2018 IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society’s Charles K. Birdsall Award for “contributions to the numerical simulation of plasmas, particularly multiple time-scale methods, and to their application to diverse plasma physics problems, from laser–plasma interactions to tokamaks.” The Birdsall Award…
Pushing Boundaries in Plasma Physics: Michael Campanell Brings His Revolutionary Model to LLNL
When Michael Campanell was a graduate student at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, he noticed something unusual: the boundary physics simulation he was running wasn’t behaving the way it was supposed to. A century of plasma theory predicted one thing, but Campanell’s simulation was doing another. This was the impetus for his thesis, and a big challenge to the status…
Go-getter undergrad lands second-author credential for 'hydrogen-getters' research
It’s rare for an undergraduate science student to appear as an author on a scientific journal paper, and when they do, theirs is usually the last name on the list. However, Elizabeth Sangalang, a graduating senior studying biochemistry at California State University East Bay, has landed a second-author credential through the research she completed as a summer intern at…
2017 Research Slam is a hit
On Sept. 7, 2017, 12 postdoc finalists of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's 2017 Research Slam! talked for three minutes each about their work before a distinguished panel of judges. The postdocs were competing for monetary prizes of two, three and four thousand dollars for third, second and first place winners, but perhaps the biggest prize was the chance to…
PLS postdocs embrace Research Slam
Picture this: it's the day of your first poster presentation as a postdoc. You've picked out your best professional suit (or your only professional suit, reserved just for this occasion), your poster has been beautifully printed with help from the Lab's print plant, and your heart is racing with nerves and excitement. Your first interested visitor stops by, quizzically…
Zavarin named Director of Glenn T. Seaborg Institute
Mavrik Zavarin has been named the new Director of The Glenn T. Seaborg Institute (GTSI) in the Physical & Life Sciences Directorate. In this capacity, Mavrik will continue to develop the GTSI's mission to carry out cutting-edge research in areas key to LLNL's Nuclear Security and Energy & Environment mission areas, with an emphasis on providing opportunities for…
Early and Mid-Career Scientists Recognized
Eight PLS researchers have been named to LLNL's second annual Early and Mid-Career Recognition (EMCR) Program. "Recognizing and encouraging early and mid-career technical staff is a key element in our strategy for retaining talent," Director Bill Goldstein said. "This program rewards employees at this stage in their careers who are exceptionally accomplished and show…
