Berkeley Lab

ATAP News, June 2022

Director’s Corner

Cameron Geddes, ATAP Division Director


This issue brings us some very special news: Marlene Turner, a research scientist in our BELLA Center, has been awarded an Early Career Research Program grant by DOE-HEP. Her work will explore energy recycling to reduce the power footprint of future colliders based on plasma acceleration—an example of how we are working to combine cutting-edge physics, budget consciousness, and good stewardship of the earth.

Also in this issue of the newsletter, you can learn about QubiC, which applies accelerator controls and instrumentation expertise to advance quantum computing hardware, and get to known Arun Persaud, a scientist in our ion-beam technology group who uses applied physics for a better way to measure carbon in soil.

Stewardship of an equitable workplace is another ATAP and Berkeley Lab priority. June brings us Pride Month and Juneteenth, both of which are opportunities for our IDEA journey.

Unfortunately, spring has also brought California an elevated status of the pandemic, so the Lab has returned for the time being to indoor mask-wearing (except when alone in an office with the door closed) and various other protective measures. Please be especially careful as we resume travel and in-person meetings, and at Fourth of July gatherings. Monitor your health daily, and if in doubt, don’t go out. We shall look out for each other’s wellbeing and persevere as we always have before.

 

PRESTIGIOUS EARLY-CAREER GRANT FOR MARLENE TURNER

After a news release by Theresa Duque of Berkeley Lab Strategic Communications

Marlene turner inspects 40 cm plasma capillary

Marlene Turner inspects a 40-centimeter-long capillary. (Credit: Thor Swift/Berkeley Lab)

ATAP’s Marlene Turner is among three Berkeley Lab scientists selected by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science to receive funding through the Early Career Research Program (ECRP). In addition, three faculty scientists with joint appointments at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley will receive ECRP funding through their UC Berkeley affiliations.

“Supporting talented researchers early in their career is key to fostering scientific creativity and ingenuity within the national research community,” said DOE Office of Science Director Asmeret Asefaw Berhe. “Dedicating resources to these focused projects led by well-deserved investigators helps maintain and grow America’s scientific skill set for generations to come.”

More …

The Office of Science selected 83 scientists from across the nation to receive significant funding for research as part of DOE’s Early Career Research Program (27 from labs and 56 from universities).

The program, now in its 13th year, is designed to bolster the nation’s scientific workforce by providing support to exceptional researchers during the first 10 years following their Ph.D., when many scientists do their most formative work.

Under the program, researchers based at DOE national laboratories will receive grants for $500,000 per year, and university-based researchers will receive grants for $150,000 per year. The research grants are planned for five years and will cover salary and research expenses.

This year’s Berkeley Lab awardees and their projects are listed below.

Bernard Nachman, Marlene Turner,

L-R: Benjamin Nachman, Marlene Turner, and Antoine Wojdyla are among 83 scientists from across the nation to receive significant funding for research through the DOE Office of Science Early Career Research Program (ECRP).

Marlene Turner is a research scientist in the Accelerator Technology & Applied Physics Division working on high-energy electron acceleration in laser-driven plasma wakefields and the next generation of particle colliders. High-energy physics particle colliders enable scientific discoveries and allow us to probe the fundamental building blocks of the universe. However, one of the limits on their scientific reach is the tremendous electrical power needed to operate them. Turner’s ECRP project, “Energy Recycling for a Green Plasma Based Collider,” develops a path toward significantly decreasing the energy consumption of future colliders, which would also reduce their operation costs.

Benjamin Nachman – a staff scientist in the Physics Division and a member of the ATLAS Collaboration at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) – specializes in developing machine learning algorithms to enhance data analysis in high energy physics. His ECRP project, “Allowing Collider Data to Tell Their Own Story with Deep Learning,” will design and deploy novel artificial intelligence and machine learning methods to automatically identify anomalies in collider data which could point to new evidence for dark matter and other new particles.

Antoine Wojdyla is a research scientist at the Advanced Light Source who led the design of future beamlines for the Advanced Light Source Upgrade (ALS-U) project. He has also developed novel coherent imaging techniques for EUV lithography. His ECRP project, “DREAM beam: Diffraction-limited Radiation Enhancement with Adaptive Mirrors for X-ray coherent beamlines,” aims to enable high-speed, real-time X-ray studies to enrich our understanding of physical phenomena in new materials for microelectronics, quantum devices, or batteries.

Additionally, faculty scientists Matt Pyle (Physics Division); Daniel Stolper (Earth & Environmental Sciences Area) and Michael Zaletel Materials Sciences Division) received Early Career awards through their UC Berkeley affiliations. Pyle, an assistant professor of physics, received the award for his project, “Developing TES with Sensitivity to meV Scale Excitations for Light Mass Dark Matter Searches and other Applications.” Stolper, an assistant professor of earth and planetary science, received the award for work in “Stable hydrogen isotopes as tracers of H2 reactivity during geological storage.” Zaletel, an assistant professor of physics, received the award for research on “Quantum simulation and state preparation for two-dimensional materials.”

To learn more

Turner has been the subject of a 3Q4 interview, a story about research that she leads in plasma lensing, and explains laser-driven plasma accelerators in Berkeley Lab’s Basics2Breakthroughs video series.

Her award is the latest in a tradition of ECRP honors for ATAP personnel in recent years, with successful projects led by Qiang Du (of the Engineering Division and ATAP), Chad Mitchell, Jeroen van Tilborg, Tengming Shen, and Daniele Filippetto.



 

 

NEWS IN BRIEF

QubiC Named Notable Achievement in AQT Annual Report

Cover photo of AQT progress report

Notable hardware achievement

 

QubiC—the customizable, modular, open-source qubit control system used by Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Quantum Testbed (AQT)—has been named as the Notable Hardware Achievement of the last year in AQT’s annual progress report.

QubiC is capable of the efficient upload and execution of quantum experiments with minimal overhead, can be customized to accommodate unique needs of users, and has demonstrated fast feedback. AQT scientists have used QubiC to develop and implement automated calibration of two-qubit gates.

QubiC’s lead developers were Gang Huang and Yilun Xu of ATAP's Berkeley Accelerator Controls and Instrumentation (BACI) Program. Their work leverages a key aspect of ATAP's particle accelerator legacy: the need for state-of-the-art instrumentation and control systems to precisely stabilize the particle beams and the sophisticated equipment that produces them. The resulting technology and know-how can benefit many other fields, such as quantum computing.

Gang Huang (l.) and Yilun Xu in front of QuBIC installation

Gang Huang (l.) and Yilun Xu led the QubiC design effort that leverages particle accelerator R&D at Berkeley Lab for quantum computing. (Credit: Christian Jünger/Berkeley Lab.). Click to watch a video of Huang and Xu at work and see the QubiC hardware.

BACI, supported by the General Accelerator R&D program in the DOE Office of High Energy Physics, has a decades-long history of developing precision control and feedback systems for particle accelerator projects. “I am very happy to see that previous investment for accelerator controls now can be further developed and used for qubits controls,” said BACI Program Head Derun Li.

“Particle accelerators are a vital component of Berkeley Lab’s scientific endeavors, so the work with advanced FPGA-based RF control technology and engineering for particle beams helped us streamline the customization for quantum hardware,” added Huang. “AQT researchers and testbed users are able to take advantage of the open source toolbox and gain a deeper understanding of flexible control hardware platforms that are both cost-effective and scalable.”

 

 

Check Out the New Research Compliance Office Website

Research Coordination Office graphic

Supporting research ethics and integrity

 

The Research Compliance Office (RCO) has a new website about their services.

The RCO covers research ethics, scientific conduct, and conflicts of interest, and supports name changes on research outputs. A new page on research security includes guidance for those engaged in international collaborations.

The RCO assists our researchers by addressing questions or concerns, providing advice, tools, resources and training around scientific conduct, research ethics, research security, managing conflicts of interest as well as international engagements.

 
 


 

THREE QUESTIONS FOR… ARUN PERSAUD

Editor’s Note: Arun Persaud was profiled for “We Are Berkeley Lab,” June 9, 2022. Among his achievements and honors was the Outstanding Mentor Award last year.

Arun Persaud and 3Q4 graphic

Persaud

 

Arun Persaud is a staff scientist in ATAP’s Fusion Science & Ion Beam Technology (FS&IBT) Program. He was born in Germany and began studying mathematics and physics in high school. In university, he focused on physics and worked at an accelerator during the summers in Darmstadt. A desire to live outside Germany and practice his English led him to Berkeley Lab in 2000, where he both worked and finished his doctoral thesis.

More …

What research have you been working on lately?

I’ve been working on a project that can help solve an urgent problem, measuring carbon in soil. Lots of carbon has been lost in agricultural soils during industrialization. Soils are not as productive as they used to be. If we can take the carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) out of the atmosphere and put it back in the soil, it helps with plans to go to carbon net zero in 2050 and, as a side effect, increases productivity in soil. If you want to do that, you have to be able to measure carbon in soil. Now, you have to drill out a soil core and burn it to measure how much carbon is in there. It doesn’t scale well. We’re measuring gamma rays coming out of the soil and can measure the distribution of carbon in an area.

What do you like about working at the Lab?

I really like the Bay Area. People are very open and international and there is a lot of energy. At the Lab, all this research is going on in different fields. In Germany, I was with the accelerator people. Here, if you have an idea, you find someone who can help you implement it. If you need an X-ray technician, the next building over there is a world expert in X-rays who can help. In our project on measuring carbon, we work with earth sciences people.

What do you do in your spare time?

I like to juggle. I used to meet weekly with friends and we would juggle. Pretty much every university in Germany has a juggling club. There are lots of math people involved. You can juggle these crazy patterns. The complexity probably appeals to math people. In case there are other people interested, I would be happy to meet up at the Lab. If we have enough interested people, perhaps a club would be an option.


 


 

INCLUSION, DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY (IDEA)

Pride, Plasma Physics, and Pedaling for a Cause:
Two Interviews with ATAP Director Cameron Geddes

Cameron Geddes

Geddes

 

ATAP Director Cameron Geddes was one of the founding members of the Pride Committee in the American Physical Society’s Division of Plasma Physics, and has also championed these issues as part of Berkeley Lab’s Lambda Alliance, an employee resource group for sexual-orientation and gender minority members of our workplace. In celebration of Pride Month, Derek Schaeffer of Princeton University and the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory interviewed him for the “Profiles in Pride” feature of the APS-DPP Plasma Pride website. Here is an updated version of the story.

Where do you work and what do you work on?

I’m the Director of the Accelerator Technology and Applied Physics Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where I’ve worked for the past twenty-two years starting as a student—on new types of particle accelerators, fusion science, photon sources and more.

More …

My research focus is in using laser driven plasma waves to accelerate particles in much smaller distances than conventional machines can: for example, 8 GeV in 20 cm. This can enable the next generation of particle colliders as well as probes and ignitors for fusion. It also can bring capabilities like photon sources with greater precision and less radiation dose—usually reserved for national labs—to the clinic or industry. Our Division invents and develops all kinds of particle accelerators, magnets, simulations and photon sources to explore and control matter and energy, as well as systems for fusion, new materials, and related areas of applied physics.

DPP Pride logo

First LGBT+ affinity group in APS

The APS DPP Pride Committee was established in 2021 and envisions a scientific community that is open, welcoming, and supportive of all scientists within the gender and sexual orientation minority communities. Its aims are to
•  Promote equity for LGBT+ physicists within our profession;
•  Foster community among LGBT+ physicists and their allies through professional networks, mentorship, and safe spaces;
•  Educate and engage allies, support efforts to end discrimination against LGBT+ physicists, and highlight LGBT+ contributions to plasma science;
•  Collaborate with other diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts to address inclusion for all groups and issues of intersectionality; and
•  Pursue a data-driven approach for identifying representation and climate-related problems and guiding solutions to those problems.

Describe your work to a non-scientist in 10 words or less.

Tools probing matter’s essential structure, for medicine, and clean energy.

How do you identify?

Gay.

What does Pride mean to you?

Pride means visibility for our community, in particular in spaces like science where we were so long forbidden from or punished for being in, and a chance to open that door further for future generations.

How do you celebrate Pride?

As much as I can! At work with flags on my door or in zoom and at events with colleagues as part of LBNL’s Lambda Alliance, which is active all year and highlights events for Pride Month. With friends and my teams at the festivals and parade. Taking the opportunities all those offer to get out and be with our community.

What is your favorite non-science activity?

This year it’s been cycling, and I was excited to be getting ready with my team, New Bear Republic, in the AIDS LifeCycle from San Francisco to Los Angeles. While I wasn’t able to ride due to COVID, I was happy to support the team and the ride in helping agencies working to reduce new HIV infections and improve quality of life for those living with HIV and AIDS.

What is your favorite street food?

Spicy Thai papaya salad!

 


 

We Are Berkeley Lab: 3Q4 Cameron Geddes

Cameron Geddes marching in Pride Parade, 2002

Cameron Geddes marches with the Lab contingent in the 2022 San Francisco Pride Parade

Mark Lawton of Berkeley Lab Strategic Communications recently interviewed Cameron for We Are Berkeley Lab.

Cameron Geddes grew up in Portland, Oregon, where he became interested in science in middle school. As a kid, he loved figuring out how things worked, taking them apart, and then rebuilding them. At Reed College, that interest grew when he took a class in nuclear science. Geddes first came to Berkeley Lab in 1995 as a student intern while in college. He completed his undergraduate degree, worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for two years, and then returned to UC Berkeley as a graduate student. In March 2021, Geddes was appointed Director of the Accelerator Technology & Applied Physics (ATAP) Division.

In February 2022, he became the executive sponsor of Lambda Alliance Employee Resource Group (ERG). Outside of Lambda Alliance, Geddes helped organize the Pride Committee of the American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics and helped start a Queer-inclusive rugby team.

What do you do at Berkeley Lab?
Laser plasma accelerators have been the largest part of my career – we push particles very quickly by shining an intense laser into ionized gas. In just centimeters, the particles are traveling so quickly, that they approach the speed of light (the speed limit in the universe). We are using that to develop, for example, next-generation particle colliders as well as precisely controlled X-rays for medicine and industry. The division also works on fusion, which is a path to clean carbon-free power, and on applications for things such as energy storage.

You joined Lambda Alliance Employee Resource Group (ERG) in 2015 and became the executive sponsor in February 2022. What does the executive sponsor do?
My job is to connect Lambda with other ERGs and management and to take issues they see and bring them to the Lab as a whole. My goal is to ensure that the work of the employee resource group is appreciated and the issues members identify are taken seriously. At the same time, I also get to participate as a member with a wonderful group, for example in the Lab’s contingent at Sunday’s Pride parade.

You have spoken about the importance of having a diverse workforce. What are the challenges of reaching that goal?

Physical sciences, in particular, but all workplaces, have structural barriers against the participation of certain groups. It results in our fields having disproportionately lower representation of minorities, women, LGBTQ+ folks, and others. We need to create an environment that allows people to express themselves and be their authentic selves at work. Pride Month, as with other months honoring under-represented groups, is an opportunity for allies to think about not having their experience being the default. I suggest for example this video, “Puncturing Stereotypes and Their Impact on Identity,” and subscribing to the 5 Ally Actions newsletter.

Berkeley Lab Pride Parade group photo

The Lab’s 2022 San Francisco Pride Parade representatives

 


 

Juneteenth: Honoring Freedom

Juneteenth graphicThis marks the second year of celebrating Juneteenth as a Federal holiday. Berkeley Lab’s African American Employee Resource Group is a great place to start in learning more about this holiday. While there, don’t forget to explore the Lab’s variety of ERGs.

Screen grab from Juneteenth video

If you missed the celebrations, the AA ERG has posted a video by Katrina King.

The History of Juneteenth
From the Berkeley Lab streaming video library
Juneteenth (a combination of June and nineteenth), also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, and Liberation Day, is celebrated annually on the 19th of June to commemorate Union army general Gordon Granger’s reading of federal orders in the city of Galveston, Texas, on 19 June 1865, proclaiming all enslaved persons in Texas were free.

The Emancipation Proclamation had formally freed them almost two and a half years earlier, and the American Civil War had largely ended with the defeat of the Confederate States in April 1865. However, Texas was the most remote of the southern states, with a low presence of Union troops, so enforcement of the proclamation had been slow and inconsistent. For decades the date of June 19 was celebrated in the African American community as a day of freedom and independence. While some states marked the day as a holiday, it was only last year when it became a federal holiday.

This year the Lab’s African American Employee Resource Group (AAERG) celebrated this date with several Lab events. On Wednesday, June 15, 2022 Katrina King spoke at a lunchtime session for employees to learn more about the holiday and how it is celebrated.

 



 

 

EDUCATION AND OUTREACH

Four from ATAP Teach at USPAS

L-R:  Luo, Persaud, Marchevskii, and Ferracin

L-R: Luo, Persaud, Marchevskii, and Ferracin

Four ATAP staff members are instructors at the Summer 2022 virtual session of the US Particle Accelerator School, an important institution in educating new accelerator scientists.

Research scientist Tianhuan Luo is on the teaching team for “Accelerator Physics,” together with Yue Hao of Michigan State University and Yichao Jing of Brookhaven National Lab and Stony Brook University.

Arun Persaud, staff scientist with the Fusion Science & Ion Beam Technology Program, is among the instructors for “Beam Physics with Intense Space Charge,” along with USPAS Director Steven Lund of Michigan State University and John Barnard of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (both of whom were closely affiliated with ATAP through the Heavy Ion Fusion Virtual National Laboratory) and Daniel Winklehner of MIT.

Staff scientist Maxim Martchevskii and senior scientist Paolo Ferracin of the Superconducting Magnet Program are teaching “Superconducting Accelerator Magnets” along with CERN’s Ezio Todesco.

ATAP’s involvement with USPAS goes back to the early days of the school. Beginning with the symposium-style programs of the 1980s and including the Joint International Particle Accelerator School, more than 80 people who were, had been, or would become employees of ATAP and its predecessor organizations have taught at USPAS, for a total of more than 100 courses and lectures. Many of these courses are team-taught with colleagues from other institutions, building lasting connections throughout the accelerator community.

 


 

 

Volunteer Opportunities Abound in Lab’s Summer Programs

Ina Reichel demonstrates balloon dipped in liquid nitrogen

ATAP Outreach and Education Coordinator Ina Reichel leads a SAGE Camp demonstration

Would you like someone to look back someday and think of you as one of the reasons they became a scientist? Berkeley Lab’s K-12 programs have volunteer opportunities across a wide variety of subject matter, interaction styles, and time commitments—there’s sure to be something for you.

 

Seeking week-of volunteers for SAGE Camp (multiple roles)

Science Accelerating Girls’ Engagement in STEM (SAGE) is a one-week summer camp that aims to engage young women and other marginalized genders in the everyday life of scientists and engineers. We are seeking volunteers to help with the following roles on-site during the week of camp, August 1-5:

Job Shadow Host — Each day of the camp, students will spend 30 min with Job Shadow Hosts learning about their position and career trajectories. The students will get a 30 min general tour of the facility where their host works. Then, the students will be split into small groups and spend 30 min with Job Shadow Hosts for an interactive tour of their work space and show-and-tell demos on what they do in their day-to-day work life.

Short Projects Facilitator — Each day of the camp, students will spend 2 hours working in one short hands-on projects. These projects will introduce a fundamental concept and allow students to work together to solve a problem that reflects Berkeley Lab mission science. Facilitators will give guidance and help trouble shoot any issues during short project sessions in small groups.

SAGE Guide / Icebreaker Leader — Each morning, students will do an icebreaker. Afterwards, they will learn skills necessary to enter and stay in STEM fields, as well as practice using tools that help develop confidence and effective communication. SAGE Guides will be responsible for a group of ~6 students throughout the entire week of camp and help facilitate each lesson.

More …

Seeking volunteers for East Bay Academy for Young Scientists (EBAYS) event

The East Bay Academy for Young Scientists (EBAYS) helps under-resourced youth do hands-on science field work while hearing about scientists’ educational and professional paths. EBAYS is seeking scientists to dedicate an hour to participate in a panel-style talk about their work, with a discussion/presentation and time for questions from students. You can participate over Zoom or in person. The program runs weekdays from June 27 – July 11 (excluding July 4), from 10 am – 4 pm. Various volunteer time slots are available.

 

Seeking facilitators for BLDAP workshops and projects

The Berkeley Lab Director’s Apprenticeship Program (BLDAP) for high school students seeks to remove systemic barriers by providing strong connections to the scientific community at Berkeley Lab.

This year’s cohort of around 20 students will work on hands-on STEM projects as part of the program. We are seeking volunteers to support students working in groups as they complete projects. Volunteer training will be provided. The program will be on-site, but volunteers are welcome to join remotely via Zoom.

Project topics include:
Week of June 27th: Fabrication tools part 1 (Arduinos, CAD)
Week of July 5th: Fabrication tools part 2 (CAD, 3D printers)
Week of July 11th: Quantum computing
Week of July 18th: Energy design challenge (designing sustainable buildings, laser cutters)
Week of July 25th: Astrophysics

Sign up to have lunch with BLDAP and EinR students

Students and staff at lunch

Students get to know scientists, other Lab staff over lunch

This summer, Berkeley Lab will host 70+ plus high school students online and in-person for internships. We invite ALL Berkeley Lab staff members to meet students during informal lunch sessions during the months of June and July. Get the chance to hear from the next generation of researchers and provide them with insight about your own path and career.

Sign up for in-person lunches with BLDAP here

Sign up for virtual lunches with EinR here

 


 

 

¡Caminos de la Ciencia Volveré!

Caminos de la Ciencia poster

“The Power of Environmental Awareness and Community: From Colombia to UC Berkeley”

Caminos de la Ciencia is returning! Science at Cal’s monthly, all-Spanish event series at the Oakland Public Library’s César E. Chávez Branch will restart with “El Poder de la Conciencia Ambiental y la Comunidad: de Colombia al UC Berkeley” (“The Power of Environmental Awareness and Community: From Colombia to UC Berkeley”) on June 28 at 5:30 PM.

 
 


 

 

ATAP Social Media Highlights

Social Media montage for June

Keep up with the latest by joining ATAP on LinkedIn and Twitter

Explaining our researchers’ latest achievements and amplifying the thoughts of others, social media have become important additions to ATAP’s communications strategy.

Pride Month, Juneteenth an IAEA meeting on quantum computing, Marlene Turner’s ECRP grant, and what ATAP can contribute to a new dawn for fusion energy are just some of our recent postings and retweets.

Join us on LinkedIn and Twitter to always get the latest!

 
 


 

Catching Up With Qing Ji

Screen shot of tweet with picture of Qing Ji

Ji

In celebration of International Women in Engineering Day (June 23), DOE’s Office of Science publicized a Women @ The Lab profile of Qing Ji. A staff scientist and head of the Plasma Applications Group in our Fusion Science & Ion Beam Technology Program, Qing has diverse interests, including laser-plasma acceleration of ion beams, which has applications that include quantum computing.

Qing joined Berkeley Lab as a scientist in 2005 after earning her PhD in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and conducting postdoctoral research at Harvard University. Qing has been widely recognized internationally for her contributions to the development of advanced accelerators, ion sources, and ion source applications in accelerator front ends, neutron generators, and semiconductor manufacturing. She holds seven U.S. patents and received an R&D 100 Award in 2012. Over the past three years, she has been the principal investigator for the development of a compact laser-driven ion beam accelerator. In another project, which received highly competitive ARPA-E support, her work on a micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) – based compact ion accelerator was featured on the front page of Review of Scientific Instruments in June 2017.

What inspired you to study STEM?
I have always been very curious about how things work. When I was a little girl, my dad used to share with me and my brother the new science discoveries and technologies he read in books, which got me very interested in STEM.

What inspires you to work in STEM or operations?
I’ve loved science since I was in elementary school. Understanding why and how things work is fascinating to me. My research in the next generation of smaller and cheaper accelerators could make accelerators more accessible, thus expanding their use in high-energy physics research, industry, medicine, national security, and materials science.

What excites you about your work at Berkeley Lab?
People. I enjoy working in a team of diverse individuals with different fields of expertise.

How can our country engage more women, girls, and members of other underrepresented groups in STEM or operations?
I think it is important to expose children, especially girls, to science at an early stage of education, and promote outreach programs to encourage girls and young women to enroll in and pursue degrees in STEM majors, ultimately leading to STEM careers. It is equally important to improve workplace culture and policies to keep young female scientists and engineers in STEM fields.

Do you have tips you would recommend for someone looking to enter your field of work?
Be persistent and resilient. Look for opportunities to gain skills and experience. Diverse skill sets and knowledge can help you adapt in a fast-changing field.

When you have free time, what are your hobbies?
I enjoy reading, painting, and hiking.

 

 

SAFETY: THE BOTTOM LINE

Resurgent Coronavirus Means Return to Heightened Precautions

The takeaway: mask up, monitor yourself for symptoms, and refer to covid.lbl.gov for the latest.

Alameda County recently entered the High (orange) CDC COVID-19 community level. The transition from Medium (yellow) to High (orange) means the Lab has implemented additional COVID safety protocols. Most of the Lab’s existing COVID protocols already met the requirements for this heightened level, so the changes to our health and safety measures are few but important.

Mask and Distancing Requirements

Masks are required outdoors for people who are less than six feet from others no matter the vaccination status.

Masks may be removed outdoors when actively eating and drinking, even if less than 6 feet apart, or indoors as the sole occupant of a closed room.

When eating and drinking indoors, a six-foot distance must be maintained.

Organizing In-Person Meetings

Organizers of planned in-person meetings of 50 people or more must consult with Environment, Health & Safety (EHS) to ensure appropriate COVID health and safety precautions are in place. This applies to both indoor and outdoor events, whether they take place onsite or offsite. Please contact covidinfo@lbl.gov to set up a consultation.

Existing Mask Requirements Remain in Place

The existing requirement for masking at all times when riding the shuttle or visiting Health Services (Building 26) remains in effect.

COVID community levels change over time, and therefore so do the Lab’s protocols. (“We’re nowhere near the endemic stage yet,” said White House coronavirus czar Dr. Ashish Jha in a New Yorker interview recommended by Nature.) Thank you for your commitment to maintaining a healthy and safe work environment at Berkeley Lab, and for your continued resilience. The Lab will update everyone as conditions change.

 
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