Tonica Valla Receives Tenure
April 2, 2009
Brookhaven Science Associates (BSA) granted tenure effective December 1, 2008, to eight Brookhaven scientists. They are Elaine DiMasi, National Synchrotron Light Source; Rita Goldstein, Medical Department; Yangang Liu, Environmental Sciences Department; Hong Ma, Physics Department; Cedomir Petrovic, Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department (CMPMS); Triveni Rao, Instrumentation Division; Tonica Valla, CMPMS; and Paul Vaska, Medical. Tenure appointments are granted by action of the BSA Board after a rigorous selection procedure overseen by the BSA Science & Technology Steering Committee. In making tenure decisions, the BSA Board is advised by members of the Brookhaven Council, an elected body that advises the Director on matters affecting the scientific staff. This is the seventh in a series of profiles.
Tonica Valla
Tonica Valla of the Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science (CMP&MS) Department was granted tenure for his world-class research in the application of photoelectron spectroscopy, an investigative technique that is one of the core strengths of BNL's program studying strongly correlated materials.
"Tony is recognized both nationally and internationally as an outstanding photoelectron spectroscopist with an excellent understanding of the physics of condensed matter systems," said CMP&NMS Department Chair Peter Johnson. "He has made some outstanding contributions to our understanding of correlated systems through his photoemission studies of a range of different materials, including the high temperature superconductor (Tc) cuprates and the dichalcogenides. While at BNL, he has coauthored 39 papers - 18 of which appeared in Physical Review Letters, Science, or Nature, with Tony as the first author on ten of the 18. He is an integral component of the strongly correlated program at BNL and fully deserving of promotion to a tenured position."
Recently, Valla and his co-workers started synthesis and spectroscopic and transport studies of graphene, a material that in certain conditions has exotic electronic properties that make it a promising candidate for electronic devices, or possibly for spintronics devices. The group overcame difficulties to produce high quality samples of graphene with these properties, an accomplishment that enables new technologies to be explored. In other observations, Valla and his coworkers found that graphene sheets play an important role in super-conductivity in graphite intercalated compounds, contradicting recent theories.
Valla received his Ph.D. from the Institute of Physics in Zagreb in 1996. He joined the electron spectroscopy group in the Physics Department as a postdoctoral fellow that same year, and he was promoted to assistant physicist in 1999. In 2001 he became an associate physicist and was named a physicist in 2004. In 2005, he was given a continuing appointment in Physics and joined the CMP&MS Department as it was formed.
2009-1119 | INT/EXT | Newsroom
