LASERNETUS - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- the Ohio State University, Advisor: D. Schumacher
Dr. Kemp received his diploma (M.A.) in theoretical physics and his PhD in plasma physics at the Max-Planck Institute for Quantum Optics / Technische Universitat Munchen/Germany in 2001 under the supervision of Jurgen Meyer-ter-Vehn, for work on a plasma equation-of-state and magnetically confined heavy ion fusion targets. After completing two years of post-doc work with Hartmut Ruhl, he started as a research scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. His current research focuses on computer simulations of laser-plasma interaction, both at non-relativistic intensities like in nanosecond pulses on the NIF and at relativistic intensities; in the latter regime he has worked on intense short-pulse absorption and electron transport in solid matter, for which he was awarded the US Department of Energy's Early Career Award in 2012. He has contributed to understanding of the absorption of intense short laser pulses for fast ignition, improved numerical models of electron transport in solid matter and TNSA ion acceleration. He is a lifetime member of the American Physical Society and the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft; he has authored or co-authored over 200 papers, which have been cited over 4,000 times.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Diagnostics Committee
Job Titles:
- University of Nebraska - Lincoln, Advisor: D. Umstadter
Job Titles:
- Director of the Accelerator Technology and Applied Physics Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Cameron G.R. Geddes is the Director of the Accelerator Technology and Applied Physics Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He leads the division in inventing, developing, and deploying particle accelerators and photon sources to extend the frontiers of science, as well as systems for fusion, plasma science and related areas of applied physics. His research focuses on study of laser driven plasma waves to create next-generation compact particle accelerators for high energy physics and photon sources, advanced laser technologies, and high energy density science. Related research spans nuclear nonproliferation, large-scale simulations, magnetic and inertial fusion, and high energy density science.
Job Titles:
- Coordinator
- Media Inquiries
Job Titles:
- Professor of Physics at the University
Chris Niemann is a Professor of Physics at the University of California Los Angeles. His research focuses on experimental laser-plasma physics in the areas of laboratory astrophysics and high-energy density physics. He has led a small team of researdhers and students to design and build the Phoenix high energy laser at UCLA. His group has used this laser in combination with the Large Plasma Device to generate the first laboratory-scaled collisionless shocks of cosmic relevance, which has been a grand challenge for more than 50 years. Prof. Niemann received his Diploma in Physics from the University of Erlangen Nuernberg (Germany) in 1998 and a PhD in Plasma Physics from the Technical University of Darmstadt (Germany) in 2002. Prior to joining the UCLA faculty he was a staff member at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory National Ignition Facility.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Diagnostics Committee
Job Titles:
- Professor at University of California Los Angeles ( UCLA )
Job Titles:
- Leader of Computational Physics Division at Voss Scientific
Dr. Welch joined the Computational Physics Group at Voss Scientific in 2005, where he serves as Computational Physics Division leader as well as principal investigator for multiple programs serving National Laboratories and Universities. The group is involved with laser interaction with matter, fusion plasmas, charged-particle beam propagation in partially ionized gases, high-power particle beam accelerators and numerical analysis including the development of cutting-edge plasma simulation tools. His personal work has been the investigation of beam transport in plasmas and gas, laser plasma interaction and beam acceleration and plasma modeling in pulsed-power machines and fusion implosions. Dr. Welch is leading development of the CHICAGO hybrid particle-in-cell code.
Job Titles:
- Co - Chair
- Assistant Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Alberta
Dr. Amina Hussein is an Assistant Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Alberta in Canada and a Canada Research Chair in Laser-Plasma Based Diagnostics. She leads a research group exploring high-intensity laser-matter interactions, including laser-driven beam and radiation sources, with applications in fundamental physics, industry and sustainable agriculture. Her research has been supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, Alberta Innovates, the US Department of Energy, among others. Dr. Hussein received her BSc in Honours Physics from McGill University in 2013, a MS in Nuclear Engineering from Purdue University in 2015, and a PhD in Applied Physics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2019, where she was a member of the Gérard Mourou Center for Ultrafast Optical Science. She was a University of California President's Postdoctoral fellow in Physics at the University of California Irvine from 2019-2020.
The panel consists of 10-20 scholars with a balanced representation of the organizations and disciplines across High Energy Denstity (HED) and high-intensity laser science. The PRP Chair is responsible for selecting new members of the PRP. LaserNetUS facility directors and technical staff are ineligible from serving on the PRP committee. The Chair of the PRP will serve no more than two (2) consecutive years while the PRP members will be recruited for 3-year terms.
At the end of the proposal review process, the Chair will provide a written response letter to the spokesperson of each proposal submitted to LaserNetUS with feedback and an official recommendation (accept/decline). Note that the Chair does not serve in a voting or scoring capacity to ensure a principled execution of the PRP procedure.
Confidentiality is strictly upheld to protect LaserNetUS users, the PRP members, and scientific integrity. Since PRP members are privy to the details of all LaserNetUS proposal submissions, they are charged with protecting the intellectual property, ideas, and concepts contained in the proposals. They must not copy, quote, use, or disclose any material from a proposal they are asked to review.
A strict Conflict of Interest (COI) policy has been established to manage and maintain an ethical framework for the PRP.
Arianna Gleason received her PhD in Earth and Planetary Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 2010. She joined Stanford University as a postdoctoral scholar in 2010 and then worked for Los Alamos National Laboratory in the Shock and Detonation Physics group before joining SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory as a staff scientist in 2018. Her passion is visualizing materials behavior and response across all length-scales at the most extreme environments possible in nature - from planetary cores to stellar interiors or for fusion energy and novel materials design. This allows her to reveal natures secrets of high-pressure mineral physics and planetary evolution from the atomic level up. In 2019 she received the Department of Energy's Early Career Award from the Office of Science, Fusion Energy Science, and recently served on the FES Science Advisory Committee for Long Range Planning.
The panel also includes 10-20 confidential members with a balanced representation of the organizations and disciplines across High Energy Denstity (HED) and high-intensity laser science. Confidentiality in the PRP process is strictly upheld to protect LaserNetUS users, the PRP members, and scientific integrity.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Diagnostics Committee
- Staff Scientist at General Atomics
Dr. Chris McGuffey is a Staff Scientist at General Atomics where he sits in the diagnostic development center jointly run by the Inertial Fusion Technologies and Magnetic Fusion Energy divisions. He has conducted high energy-density experiments using several of the LaserNetUS facilities and other user facilities around the world over the last decade. His research often involves applications of laser-driven intense ion beams. Prior to this, Dr. McGuffey studied laser wakefield acceleration of electrons and X-ray generation using the ultrahigh intensity Hercules laser, earning the Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Michigan.
Job Titles:
- Dean
- Member of the Diagnostics Committee
Dr. Dean Rusby is a lead experimentalist for the LLNL MeV Laser Radiography project. During his PhD at the Central Laser Facility in the UK, he participated in experimental campaigns developing x-rays sources and scintillator-based diagnostics for imaging and spectral analysis. Upon joining LLNL as a post-doc, he worked on developing a MeV x-ray source using the ARC laser, utilizing the recently developed Compound Parabolic Concentrators (CPC). He has conducted several experiments using the CPCs to better understand their operation on high-intensity lasers. He has led or supported the development of a range of x-ray diagnostics and their analysis routines, including differential filters, real-time nuclear activation, and exploring novel methods to quantify x-ray spectra at MeV energies.
Dr. Derek Schaeffer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received his BA in Physics and Philosophy from Cornell University and his PhD in Physics from UCLA. He did his postdoctoral work at Princeton in high-energy-density laboratory astrophysics, where he was one of the primary developers of pioneering laboratory experiments that utilize high-energy lasers to generate astrophysically-relevant collisionless shocks in high-energy-density plasmas. He is the recipient of the DOE Early Career Research Award. His current research focuses on experiments and numerical simulations of the interaction of magnetized plasmas and strongly driven high-energy-density flows, with applications to astrophysical phenomena, particle acceleration, and inertial fusion energy.
Job Titles:
- Professor in the Physics and Astronomy Department at the University of Nebraska
Dr. Donald Umstadter is a professor in the Physics and Astronomy Department at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln (UNL). He also holds the Leland J. and Dorothy H. Olson Chancellors Distinguished Chair of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics. He established and directs the Extreme Light Laboratory, one of the host institutions of a network of the LaserNetUS network of high-intensity laser facilities.
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Professor of Physics at the Ohio State University
Dr. Douglass Schumacher is a Professor of Physics at the Ohio State University. He earned his BS at the University of Illinois and his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan. He has studied intense laser-atom interactions, Rydberg atom physics, and nonlinear optics. He is currently exploring relativistic laser-plasma interactions and the development of liquid crystal technology for targets and plasma mirrors. His research effort is both experimental and computational.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Diagnostics Committee
Dr. Frances Kraus is a plasma physicist and x-ray spectroscopist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. She has a bachelors from University of Alabama (2014) and a PhD in astrophysics from Princeton University (2021). Her graduate research culminated in a Cycle 1 LaserNetUS campaign to study x-ray emission from hot dense plasmas at the ALEPH facility at Colorado State University. Since then, Frances has been running and participating in LaserNetUS campaigns on ultrafast time-resolved x-ray spectroscopy, fast proton generation, and spectroscopy of warm-dense matter. She is particularly interested in "big data" analysis techniques with applications to laser facilities with high shot repetition rates. Aside from participating in the LaserNetUS Data and Diagnostics Committee, Frances cares deeply about engaging the publics in physics, and is therefore a regular PPPL tour guide, an occasional radio host and an elected chair of the American Physical Society's Forum on Outreach and Engagement of the Public.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Diagnostics Committee
- Researcher
Dr. Franziska Treffert is a postdoctoral researcher in the High-Intensity Laser High-Energy Density (HED) Science group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Her research is focused on the laser-driven generation of high-flux, directional neutron beams in a pitcher-catcher setup. Franziska received her PhD from Technische Universität Darmstadt (Germany) in January 2023 on high-repetition-rate laser-driven neutron sources employing cryogenic and ambient-temperature liquid jet as pitcher targets, where she received a prestigious PhD sholarship from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation awarded for two years. She conducted this research in collaboration with the HEDS division at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, where she was based throughout the duration of her PhD.
Dr. François Légaré (Fellow OPTICA, Fellow American Physical Society) is a chemical physicist who specializes in developing novel approaches for ultrafast science and technologies, as well as biomedical imaging with nonlinear optical microscopy (Ph.D. in chemistry, 2004 - co-supervised by Profs. André D. Bandrauk and Paul B. Corkum). Since 2013, he is Full Professor at the Energy Materials Telecommunications Centre of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS-EMT). From 2013 to 2023, he has been the scientific head of the Advanced Laser Light Source (ALLS). He is currently the director of INRS-EMT and CEO of the ALLS facility. Under his scientific leadership, INRS has received in 2017 a grant of 13.9M CDN$ from the CFI and the Quebec government, with 11.9M CDN$ to upscale the ALLS facility with high average power Ytterbium laser systems and advanced instrumentation for time-resolved material characterization. From 2023 to 2029, ALLS is funded by the Major Science Initiatives program of the Canada Foundation for Innovation, enabling the facility to realize its 2022-2027 strategic plan (https://alls.inrs.ca/governance). In career, he has supervised 52 interns, 19 M.Sc. and 24 Ph.D. students, and 24 postdoctoral fellows.
Job Titles:
- Lead Scientist at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Dr. Gilliss Dyer is a Lead Scientist at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Department Head of Matter in Extreme Conditions in the Science, Research, and Development division of LCLS. He leads the MEC instrument team, which is dedicated to supporting the user programs of LCLS and LaserNetUS and developing new scientific capabilities and techniques in the science of high energy density, dynamic materials, and plasmas, particularly those making use of the LCLS X-ray source. Dr. Dyer earned his BA in Mathematics and Physics from New College of Florida and his PhD in Physics at the University of Texas, Austin. His professional background includes extensive work in the development and use of multi-terawatt and petawatt high energy density laser plasma experimental capabilities, as well as the development and construction of the high power chirped pulse amplification lasers.
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Dr. Jean-Luc Vay is a Senior Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Head of the Accelerator Modeling Program (AMP) in the Accelerator Technology and Applied Physics Division. His group provides leadership in the development and use of advanced algorithms and high-performance computing simulation codes, in application to particle beam and accelerator physics, plasmas, laser-plasma interaction, fusion, and more. His team founded and manages the Beam, pLasma & Accelerator Simulation Toolkit (BLAST), which forms the backbone of a coherent community ecosystem with a set of advanced software (including the 2022 ACM Gordon Bell prize winning code WarpX) developed and maintained by an international community. He earned his BA in Physics from the University of Poitiers, France and his PhD in Physics from the University of Paris, France. He is the recipient of the 2022 ACM Gordon Bell prize, the 2014 NERSC Award for Innovative Use of High-Performance Computing and the 2013 US Particle Accelerator School Prize for Achievement in Accelerator Physics & Technology. He also leads the US DOE SciDAC projects on the Collaboration of Advanced Modeling of Particle Accelerators (CAMPA) and on Kinetic IFE Simulations at Multiscale with Exascale Technologies (KISMET).
Job Titles:
- Fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Elizabeth Grace is the 2022 High Energy Density Science Center Fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where she works on the development of new diagnostics for energetic particles that result from laser interactions with matter. She obtained her PhD in Physics from Georgia Tech in 2022, specializing in single-shot optical diagnostics for high power (>TW) laser systems. She hikes and cycles in her spare time, and she believes that science should be made accessible to everyone.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Director of the Jupiter Laser Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Félicie Albert is the Director of the Jupiter Laser Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. She earned her PhD in physics in 2007 from the Ecole Polytechnique in France, her MS in Optics from the University of Central Florida in 2004, and her BS in engineering from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Physique de Marseille, France, in 2003. Her areas of expertise include the generation and applications of novel sources of electrons, x-rays and gamma-rays through laser-plasma interaction, laser-wakefieldacceleration, and Compton scattering. She has conducted many experiments using high-intensity lasers at various facilities around the world. Félicie received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2019, was awarded a 2016 DOE Early Career Research Program Award to develop new x-ray sources for high energy density science experiments and has been leading several Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) projects at LLNL. She is the recipient of the 2017 American Physical Society (APS) Katherine E. Weimer Award for outstanding contributions to plasma science research and of the 2017 Edouard Fabre Prize for contributions to the physics of laser-produced plasmas. She was elected a Fellow of the APS (Division of Plasma Physics) in 2019, a National Academy of Sciences Kavli Fellow in 2020 and a Fellow of Optica (formerly OSA) in 2023. She served as chair of LaserNetUS, a network for 10 high power lasers in North America between 2020-2022, as well as on the NAS committee for the assessment of High Energy Density Science in 2021-2022.
Job Titles:
- Chief Technology Officer at Prism Computational Sciences
Dr. Golovkin is a Chief Technology Officer at Prism Computational Sciences - a company that develops and applies innovative software tools for scientific research and commercial applications in the physical sciences and engineering. His main focus of research has been on the study of plasmas created in high-power laser, z-pinch, and ion beam experiments performed at major national laboratories and universities. He leads the development of radiation-hydrodynamics and synthetic diagnostics simulation tools applicable to research in high-energy-density laboratory plasmas. Dr. Golovkin received his MS degree in mathematical physics from Moscow State University in 1993 and Ph.D. in atomic and plasma physics from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2000. Related interests include high-performance computing, large-scale simulations, metaheuristics, and magnetic and inertial fusion. Dr. Golovkin authored and co-authored numerous research papers. He also serves as a reviewer for several editorial boards, agencies, and committees.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Diagnostics Committee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Diagnostics Committee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Diagnostics Committee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Diagnostics Committee
- Vice - Chair of the Diagnostics Committee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Diagnostics Committee