Happy New Year

January 19, 2021

Dear Everyone,

Happy New Year! I hope you had a relaxing holiday season and a good start to 2021. The past year was a challenging one for all of us—a challenge that is far from over. But at NSLS-II we have kept science moving forward and will continue to do so. In this newsletter, I would like to highlight some ways in which we plan to do that.

Remote user program (cycle 2021-1)

The 2021-1 cycle begins on January 25 following our winter shutdown. Due to the very high COVID rates currently, we have made the decision to pause the on-site user program at the start of the cycle. All experiments will, therefore, be remote until at least March 1st. Please stay tuned for updates on beam time allocations from the Users’ Office or through contact with the beamline staff.  

Faster data transport & higher security

Smooth data transfer has become more important than ever in the current environment. In the past, we have faced challenges in this regard due to the networking at our beamlines. To solve this going forward, we are changing the networking at all of our beamlines and are connecting the facility to the High Throughput Science Network (HTSN) at Brookhaven Lab. This network offers increased security and higher data transfer speeds. I am happy to report that we have updated the networking on about half of our beamlines and expect to finish transitioning all beamlines to the new network by the end of May.

User experiments beyond cycle 2021-1

The constantly changing circumstances surrounding the spread of COVID-19 make future planning extremely difficult. Our priorities remain to accomplish our mission of advancing science with our users while keeping our staff safe. We will continue to do so. While it is not yet clear what the situation will be regarding on-site users in the summer and fall cycles, we are committed to doing all that we can to enable your science. We will continue to adapt to the circumstances, and I appreciate your understanding and patience.

I also note that, for COVID-19 research, we continue to have a special rapid access proposal process that remains active.

Virtual users’ meeting 2021

A reminder that we will have our annual Users’ Meeting from May 17-19, 2021 jointly with BNL’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials. The meeting will consist of a plenary session, a poster session, and an array of scientific workshops. Please save the dates for this virtual event.

Congratulations to our sister facility

I would like to congratulate our sister cryo-EM facility, the Laboratory for BioMolecular Structure, on hosting their first experiments by visiting researchers on Jan. 8, 2021. We look forward to growing collaborations between NSLS-II and LBMS that enhance the synergies within our life science community.

Thank you

I would also like to use this newsletter to express my gratitude to the NSLS-II staff, who have all worked extremely hard to keep science moving forward during these most trying times, and I would like to thank you—all of our users—who have been patient and understanding as we continue to navigate through these challenges. I wish you all the best for continued success in your research endeavors in 2021 and hope to see you (in person or virtually) at NSLS-II this year!

Thank you for taking the time to read this newsletter.

John Hill, NSLS-II Director