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Julian Baumert PhD Thesis Award
Nominations are being sought for the Julian Baumert Ph.D. Thesis Award. This award has been established in memory of Julian David Baumert, a young Brookhaven physicist who was working on x-ray studies of soft-matter interfaces at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS). The annual award, which was initiated in 2008 will be presented to a researcher who has recently conducted a thesis project that included significant measurements at NSLS-II.
Applications are due by Friday, February 7, 2025, 11:59 pm.
Award Details
The Julian David Baumert Award consists of the winner's name displayed on the NSLS-II UEC and Users' Meeting websites, and a $2,000 honorarium for sharing their research. The winner will give a presentation on his/her thesis work during the users' meeting.
Award Eligibility and Nominations
Candidates must have completed all the requirements of their Ph.D within the last two calendar years*. Candidates should be continuing their careers in scientific research. Applications must follow these instructions:
- A letter of nomination (two pages maximum) with the following
information about the candidate's Ph.D.:
- summary of the scientific and/or technological impact of the thesis
- Ph.D candidate's name and contact information
- nominator's contact information
- An extended abstract (two pages maximum), prepared by student or
nominator, that includes:
- a first paragraph that explains the significance of the thesis results in layman's terms
- a summary of the thesis research
- identification and significance of NSLS II measurements to the thesis
- contributions to the development of NSLS II beamlines or facilities (if relevant)
- The candidate's CV.
The nominations will be reviewed by a selection committee made up of the following members:
- Ben Ocko (Chair), BNL – National Synchrotron Light Source ll (NSLS-II)
- Christopher Homes, BNL – National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II)
- Christie Nelson, BNL – National Synchrotron Light Source ll (NSLS-II)
- Wuxian Shi, BNL – National Synchrotron Light Source ll (NSLS-II)
* Candidates who were granted their Ph.D. degree prior to 12/31/2022 are ineligible for the award.
About Julian
The Julian Baumert PhD Thesis Award was established in 2007 in memory of Julian David Baumert, a young Brookhaven physicist who was working on x-ray studies of soft-matter interfaces at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS).
Julian David Baumert was a relatively new Research Associate in the Soft-Matter and X-ray groups in Brookhaven's Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department when he died of melanoma on June 24, 2006. He was 31.
Born in Berlin, Germany, Baumert was educated at the Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics (IEAP) at the University of Kiel and the Institute Laue-Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble, France, where he studied a compound known as methane hydrate, which is found naturally on the sea floor and is a promising energy resource. His thesis focused on the structure and dynamics of this compound using neutron and x-ray scattering techniques and numerical simulations. Baumert obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Kiel in February 2004, receiving the prestigious "Familie-Schindler Foerderungs-Preis" of the Faculty of Science in Kiel.
Baumert came to BNL in July 2004 and conducted his research at NSLS beamline X22, where he was part of a team of scientists learning to make smaller and more powerful molecular-scale circuit components that could someday make electronic devices more efficient. He was the principal investigator on a paper published in February 2006 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that described the first measurements of the structure of a molecular junction at buried interfaces, and just before his death, he was working to elucidate how the structural and electrical properties of these molecular junctions depend on the molecular coverage.
The annual award is presented to a researcher who has recently conducted a thesis project that included significant measurements at NSLS and NSLS-II.
Current & Past Award Winners
2024 Award Winner - Juanita Hidalgo
Juanita Hidalgo
Georgia Institute of Technology
Congratulations to Juanita Hidalgo for outstanding research work conducted on a thesis project entitled "Structure-Property Relationships in Lead Halide Perovskites for Solar Cells” performed at the National Synchrotron Light Source II.
2023 Award Winner - Senay Ustunel
Senay Ustunel
Kent State University
Congratulations to Senay Ustunel for outstanding research work conducted on a thesis project entitled "Designing bio-inks for the development of biocompatible and biodegradable liquid crystal elastomers with tunable properties for specific tissue needs" performed at the National Synchrotron Light Source II.
2022 Award Winner - Jiayue Wang
Jiayue Wang
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Congratulations to Jiayue Wang for outstanding research work conducted on a thesis project entitled "Controllable and predictive defect engineering for renewable energy systems" performed at the National Synchrotron Light Source II.
- Aaron Michelson, Columbia University (honorable mentions)
- Chonghang Zhao, Stony Brook University (honorable mentions)
2021 Award Winner - Lisa Housel
Lisa Housel
Stony Brook University
Congratulations to Lisa Housel for outstanding research work conducted on a thesis project entitled "Understanding Charge Transport for Current and Future Electrochemical Energy Storage" performed at the National Synchrotron Light Source II.
2020 Award Winner - Megan Hill
Megan Hill
Northwestern University
Congratulations to Megan Hill for outstanding research work conducted on a thesis project entitled "Total Tomographic Imaging of III-V Nanowires: Understanding Composition, Strain, Polytypes, and Properties" performed at the National Synchrotron Light Source II.
2019 Award Winner - Chao Wang
Chao Wang
University of Delaware
Congratulations to Chao Wang for outstanding research work conducted on a thesis project entitled "Effect of Reversible Crosslinks on Nanostructure and Properties of Supramolecular Hydrogels".
2018 Award Winner - Maxwell Terban
Maxwell Terban
Max-Planck Institutes
Congratulations to Maxwell Terban for outstanding research work conducted on a thesis project entitled "Characterizing the Atomic Structure in Low Concentrations of Weakly Ordered, Weakly Scattering Materials using the Pair Distribution Function" performed at the National Synchrotron Light Source II.
2017 Award Winner - Kelli Hvorecny
Kelli Hvorecny
Dartmouth College
Congratulations to Kelli Hvorecny for outstanding research work conducted on a thesis project entitled "From Particles to Patients: The Role of an Epoxide Hydrolase in Pseudomonas Aeruginosa Virulence" performed at the National Synchrotron Light Source.
2016 Award Winner - Kip Guja
Kip Guja
Stony Brook University
Congratulations to Kip Guja for outstanding research work conducted on a thesis project entitled "Structural Insights into Mitochondrial Gene Expression and Disease" performed at the National Synchrotron Light Source.
2015 Award Winner - Naisheng Jiang
Naisheng Jiang
Case Western Reserve University
Congratulations to Naisheng Jiang for outstanding research work conducted on a thesis project entitled “Structure-Property Relationships of Polymeric Materials at the Solid-Polymer Melt Interfaces” performed at the National Synchrotron Light Source.
2014 Award Winner - Romina Mancusso
Romina Mancusso
New York University Medical Center
Congratulations to Romina Mancusso for outstanding research work conducted on a thesis project entitled "Solving the Structure of a Transporter using a Novel Phasing Method" performed at the National Synchrotron Light Source.
2013 Award Winner - Jarrett A. Moyer
Jarrett A. Moyer
Yale University
Congratulations to Jarrett Moyer for outstanding research work conducted on a thesis project entitled "Spin-polarized Materials for Spintronics Applications" performed at the National Synchrotron Light Source.
2012 Award Winner - Christopher Patridge
Christopher Patridge
State University of New York at Buffalo
Congratulations to Christopher Patridge for outstanding research work conducted on a thesis project in solid-state chemistry that included measurements at beamlines U7A and X23A2 performed at the National Synchrotron Light Source.
2011 Award Winner - Andrew Ying
Andrew Ying
Columbia University
Congratulations to Andrew Ying for outstanding research work conducted on a thesis project entitled"A Rigorous Analysis of the Applicability of Kinematical X-ray Diffraction Theory to Nanostructure Characterization" performed at the National Synchrotron Light Source.
2010 Award Winner - Jonathan Rameau
Jonathan Rameau
Stony Brook University
Congratulations to Jonathan Rameau for outstanding research work conducted on a thesis project entitled "High Resolution Photoemission Experiments on Copper Oxide Superconductors" performed at the National Synchrotron Light Source.
2009 Award Winner - Chuan-Hsiang Huang
Chuan-Hsiang Huang
Johns Hopkins University
Congratulations to Chuan-Hsiang Huang for outstanding research work conducted on a thesis project entitled "Insights into Oncogenic Mutations from a Human PI3Kα Structure" performed at the National Synchrotron Light Source.
2008 Award Winner - Eli Sloutskin
Eli Sloutskin
Harvard University
Congratulations to Eli Sloutskin for outstanding research work conducted on a thesis project entitled "Surface Ordering in van-der-Waals and Coulomb Liquids" performed at the National Synchrotron Light Source.
2007 Award Winner - Benjamin Hornberger
Benjamin Hornberger
Stony Brook University
Congratulations to Benjamin Hornberger for outstanding research work conducted on a thesis project entitled "Phase Contrast Microscopy with Soft and Hard X-rays Using a Segmented Detector" performed at the National Synchrotron Light Source.