Photon Sciences Recognizes Achievement: Awards to Staff and Users in 2013
February 4, 2014
Staff members of the Photon Sciences Directorate as well as its user community can look back on a year of achievement.
Brookhaven Award
Diane Hatton has made major contributions to the success of Brookhaven Lab over the course of a distinguished 30-year career here. This is especially true with the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), a critical institutional objective for the Laboratory that would not have achieved the success it has enjoyed without Hatton. She played a key leadership role in efforts to seek approval for NSLS-II and then planned and built a project support organization that has proven to be incredibly effective in enabling execution of this billion-dollar project. It has served as a model for projects elsewhere.
Engineering Award
Kurt Vetter* led a team of scientists and engineers to develop a submicron radio frequency (RF) beam position monitor for NSLS-II. This program started in August 2009 and, in less than 18 months, the RF beam position monitor was designed and tested successfully to meet all requirements, including a “world-class” resolution and stability standard. Vetter exhibited an outstanding level of knowledge and understanding of production processes. Production issues were communicated to vendors clearly and concisely, and all issues were tracked until fully mitigated. In addition to the technical achievement, this state-of-the-art instrument is now available to Department of Energy laboratories at almost half the cost of the commercially available unit.
Service Anniversary Awards
5 Years
- Townsend Anschutz
- Belkacem Bacha
- Nathalie Bouet
- Michael Bromfield
- Weixing Cheng
- Edward Cheswick Jr.
- Leo Dalesio
- Richard Faussete
- Raymond Fliller
- John Gosman
- Patrice Greenwood
- Yoshiteru Hidaka
- Steven Jarzabkowski
- Bernard Kosciuk
- Tabatha Leighley
- Yongjun Li
- Jun Ma
- William O'Brien
- Leo Reffi
- Sergei Seletskiy
- Bruno Semon
- Guobao Shen
- Qun Shen
- Kunal Shroff
- Christopher Sorrentino
- Ryan Tappero
- Jun Wang
- King Wilson
- Huijuan Xu
- Joseph Zipper
10 Years
- Dario Arena
- Mercy Baez
- Richard Buono
- Donald Davis
- Kenneth Evans-Lutterodt
- Robert Petkus
- Randy Smith
- Kurt Vetter*
15 Years
- Robert Hoade
- Nikolay Malitsky
20 Years
- John Escallier
- Craig Rhein
- Christopher Stelmach
- Xijie Wang
25 Years
- Scott Bell
- Vito Graziano
- Frank Lincoln
- Om Singh
- Sung-Leung So
- Emil Zitvogel
30 Years
- Diane Hatton
- Steven Hulbert
- Robert Sweet
35 Years
- Roy D’Alsace
- Walter De Boer
- Thomas Dilgen
- John Gallagher
- George Ganetis
- Richard Greene
- Jack Tallent Jr.
40 Years
- Adolph Almasy
- Samuel Krinsky
Spotlight Awards
Photon Sciences recognized 25 staff members with Spotlight Awards, given to those who have shown exceptional dedication to their jobs during the year. The recipients were:
John Almond, for installing the LBT phase land 2, along with the booster-to-transport line deionized water. He did the job ahead of scheduled time and in a safe and timely manner while also keeping up with his other normal assignments.
Stephen Antonelli, who made critical contributions in the successful design of the Be-CRL system for the IXS beamline through innovative design choices and rigorous FEA validation.
Mercy Baez, for her outstanding organizational skills in supporting the X6A Symposium and the X6A Workbench, both of which had to be cancelled and rescheduled due to Hurricane Sandy. She handled multiple tasks, including logistics, registration and reimbursements, all with efficiency and friendliness.
Mark Breitfeller, for learning a new style of project management and a new area of mechanical engineering, that of radiation shielding for accelerator systems, in a very short time period. He provided mechanical designs, supervised mechanical drawings, fabrication and installation of supplemental shielding in the linac in a record setting four- month time period.
Charles Gardner, Anthony Harkins, Philip Marino, Leonard Pharr, Peter Ratzke and Gary Weiner, on duty as Control Room Group 1 during the severe snowstorm beginning on February 10, 2013, for keeping the NSLS workplace safe and continuing normal operations for the many users that were here.
Christopher Danneil, who completed testing and installation of the NSLS-II booster beam-position monitor (BPM) Pilot tone combiner modules, ahead of schedule with 100 percent yield. Even though testing and installation of boosters BPMs are a part of his normal responsibilities, he went above and beyond those expectations by streamlining testing methodology and employing MatLab-based software experience that he had previously.
William Fielitz, for accomplishing the NSLS-II booster installation and termination of cables and equipment in a timely fashion, allowing booster testing to commence on the target date and enabling the Russian contingent to complete their work within the window of time allotted for their stay in the U.S.
Richard Freudenberg and Gary Pappas (see a second Spotlight for Pappas, below), for their tirelessness, steadfastness and innovation in diagnosing, coordinating and repairing the cryogenic system for the NSLS X17 superconducting wiggler. While their job performance is above and beyond what is expected, they did it under extreme pressure while still preserving their sense of humor and respect for the users.
Aditya Goel, for designing and constructing the high-power diagnostics end station and high-power radio-frequency (RF) conditioning of the 500 MHz superconducting-cavity RF power window. The work, which involved a 300 kW radio-frequency transmitter and 50 kV 12-amp high-voltage power supply, was done safely and with detailed procedures and work planning.
Richard Iaccarino, whose technical and organizational skills were instrumental in leading a repair of the low-pressure copper water system heat exchanger that minimized VUV Ring downtime and prevented delay in the scheduled X-ray Ring startup. He also implemented a temporary work-around in response to a subsequent similar failure in the high-pressure copper water system.
Robert Kiss, for planning, coordinating and executing the directorate’s Big Move to Building 725 of over 100 staff members from numerous buildings within Photon Sciences, meeting critical schedules and doing so without incident in a way that saved the approximately $50,000.
Tabatha Leighley, who coordinated the international workshop on Radiation Safety at Synchrotron Radiation Sources, which required interacting with international light sources, arranging for entry visas and assisting with lodging for many of the participants.
Barbara Moebes, for her extraordinary efforts related to Brookhaven Lab’s annual Earth Day “Office Swap” and to reorganizing Bldg. 725 mailrooms to better fit the needs the Accelerator Division staff.
Gary Pappas (see his second Spotlight, shared with Richard Freudenberg), for his exceptional effort keeping the NSLS X-17 cryogenic system running for users while also keeping up with duties in the machine shop and assignments for NSLS-II installation.
Regina Robinson, for continuing to play an instrumental role in the Big Move of over 200 staff members by helping to come up with creative solutions, providing logistical support and sharing the workload in ways that exceed her job classification.
Shweta Saraf, for integrating the water systems for NSLS-II into the EPICS control system. She created the user control panels and an alarm notification system needed for 24-hour operations in time for linac commissioning and power supply testing in the storage ring.
Kunal Shroff, who completed the specification for an electronic logbook and had the standard adopted by the developers at both Michigan State University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Robert Sikora, for technical oversight of the installation of the PHPK liquid nitrogen system. What is notable about Sikora’s performance is that he found ways to do the work safely and coordinated efforts across Lab boundaries, bringing together the NSLS-II project, Lab ES&H and vendor activities.
Jean Smiles, for developing and executing processes to address staging and manpower issues related to the first phase of the Big Move, critical to the success of the initial move of 116 people and all subsequent moves.
Nancye Wright, who received two Spotlights: 1) for an outstanding job helping to plan, organize and run the 2013 NSLS/NSLS-Il Summer Sunday on July 21, the most ambitious open house that Photon Sciences has ever mounted, and 2) for her outstanding support of the annual structure function workshop series offered by the Lab to local high schools in Babylon, Freeport, Queens, Sayville and Shelter Island.
UEC Community Service Award
Awarded by the Photon Sciences Users Executive Committee for outstanding service, innovation and dedication to NSLS users.
Michael Lehecka (given posthumously; see details)
Julian Baumert Ph.D. Thesis Award
User Jarrett Moyer, University of Illinois (formerly of Yale University; see details)
Brookhaven Town Women of the Year
Diane Hatton (see details)
Order of the Sacred Treasure, by the Emperor of Japan
Satoshi Ozaki (see details)
Gregori Aminoff Prize in Crystallography 2014, by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
User Yigong Shi, Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, “for his groundbreaking crystallographic studies of proteins and protein complexes that regulate programmed cell Death” (see details)
Silver Medal in Energy at the 2013 International Sustainable World Energy, Engineering, and Environment Project Olympiad
User Jacob Weiser, Syosset High School, for “The Observations and Analyses of the Crystallization Process of CuxV2O5 in the Hydrothermal Synthesis using In-situ Synchrotron X-ray Powder Diffraction” (Weiser’s mentor was Jianming Bai, arranged through the Office of Educational Program’s High School Research Program; see details)
Richard M. Hawkins Award
User Andriy Kovalskyy, Austin Peay State University (see details)
Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists
User Andrey Feklistov, The Rockefeller University (see details)
2012 Etter Early Career Award from the American Crystallographic Association
User Emmanuel Skordalakes, University of Pennsylvania (see details)
*Kurt Vetter transferred to the Instrumentation Division in September 2013.
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