The NSF supported BioXFEL Science and Technology Center sponsored student poster awards for presentations at the LCLS/SSRL users meeting from 2020 to 2023. BioXFEL briought students to the joint users meeting to experience the diverse nature of the research performed at XFELs and Synchrotrons and to provide an introduction to the facilities themselves. The awards encourage all students to participate and are open to all students that attend the meeting and present posters with work using XFEL or synchrotron facilities, or developing research that may lead to applications that make use of these facililties. BioXFEL sponsored these awards for the duration of the BioXFEL program which is directed by Dr. Edward Snell at the SUNY University at Buffalo and Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute.
Competition
- Up to 4 awards were given to undergraduate or graduate students (BS, MS or PhD student) with the most exciting, promising, and compelling science that has made use of XFELs or synchrotrons, or leads to their eventual use. The awards are not limited to those that are part of the BioXFEL program.
- The poster competition will be judged by a panel comprised of the Users' Conference Organizing Committee, SSRL Users' Executive Committee (SSRL UEC), LCLS Users' Executive Committee (LCLS UEC) with help from the BioXFEL education committee and SSRL/LCLS scientists to ensure that broad research areas are covered.
- Judges may develop their own criteria, but in general it will consist of asking poster presenters to give a concise summary of their poster (3-4 minutes). Judges confer and select a small group of ‘finalists’ that may be asked to also present to the other judges, typically for a shorter time.
- Awards were announced at the conclusion of the poster session and during the users conference plenary session (certificates were also provided to the awardees).
Awards
Up to four $250 awards to undergraduate or graduate students (BS, MS or PhD student). It is hoped that this encourages students to articulate their research at an early stage and that the peer recognition of the student's outstanding accomplishments helps the recipient’s application for either graduate school, postdoctoral position or employment in their chosen scientific field.
Congratulations to the recipients of the 2023 Outstanding Poster Award Competition presented at the SSRL/LCLS Annual Users' Meeting (link is external) on September 27, 2023 (and thank you to the SSRL and LCLS UEC Judges)!
- Moritz Kretschmar, LBNL: BIO-5: Time-resolved Structural Measurements on Trimeric Photosystem I from Thermosynechococcus vestitus
- Ryan Lamb, University of Michigan: C&C-1: Toolkit for Time-Resolved X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy: Using Polarized Spectroscopy and Multiple Atomic Perspectives to Explore Photochemical Dynamics of Model 3d Transition Metal Complexes
- Wenxin Li, Yale University: Mat-2: Role of Fe Intercalation on Antiferromagnet FexNbS2
- Lizzie Paulus, Stanford University: ENV-1: Does Manganese Control Organic Carbon Stability on a Hawaiian Grassland Gradient
- Doris Mai, California Institute of Technology: C&C-2: Multi-crystal Data Reduction in a Bayesian Framework
Congratulations to the recipients of the 2022 Outstanding Poster Award Competition presented at the SSRL/LCLS Annual Users' Meeting (link is external) on September 29, 2022 (and thank you to the SSRL and LCLS UEC Judges)!
- Margaret Doyle, LBNL, A-2: Molecular-dynamics simulations of Photosystem II crystals combined with time-resolved XFEL serial crystallography
- Kenneth Shui, Monta Vista High School, B-2: 2D Phase Retrieval for X-ray Free Electron Laser Diffraction Data with Improved Iterative Algorithms
Congratulations to the recipients of the 2021 Outstanding Poster Award Competition presented at the SSRL/LCLS Annual Users' Meeting (link is external) on September 24, 2021 (and thank you to the SSRL and LCLS UEC Judges)!
- Gabriela Diaz-Figueroa, University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez. Puerto Rico. A-10: From Alignment Laser to 3D Structures: Determining Structures of GPCRs in a Compact X-ray Light Source
- AlecPitter, University ofBuffalo, USA. B-1: Monodisperse liposomal formation via Microfluidic Hydrodynamic Focusing
- Jacob Spies, Yale University, USA. C-11: Synergy Between Time-Resolved X-ray and Terahertz Spectroscopy: Electron Transfer in Metal Oxides
- Christian Tannert, University of California Berkeley, USA. C-10: In situ X-ray scattering of strongly coupled nanocrystal superlattice self-assembly in electrolytic environments
Congratulations to the recipients of the 2020 Outstanding Student Poster Award Competition which were announced at the SSRL/LCLS Annual Users' Meeting on September 30, 2020 (and thank you to the SSRL and LCLS UEC Judges and others who helped)!
- Isabel Bogacz, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA. "Molecular movie" of the S2 to S3 transition of Photosystem II using X-ray crystallography and spectroscopy
- Ebru Destan, Koç University, Turkey. Near-Physiological-Temperature Serial Femtosecond X-ray Crystallography structure of SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease
- Ethan Holleman, Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research InstituteHauptman-Woodward Med. Res. Inst. USA. Polo: A GUI For High-Throughput Crystallization
- Samantha Muellers, Boston University, USA. Deconvolution of structure-activity relationships of peptide inhibitors of the KEAP1/Nrf2 protein-protein
