SSRLUO Executive Committee Members Archive

Amrita Bhattacharyya, University of San Francisco
Amrita Bhattacharyya is a tenure-track faculty in the Department of Chemistry at University of San Francisco. Bhattacharyya’s research interests involve the investigation of environmental geochemistry problems that are driven by climate change. Specifically, she focuses on the nexus between carbon cycling and metal redox chemistry, and the impact of this coupling on both bulk and molecular-scale processes. Much of her research is accomplished using process-based measurements and state-of-the-art synchrotron-based spectroscopic (XAS), microscopic (TEM, SEM), and diffraction (XRD) methods to understand elemental oxidation state and bonding environment in terrestrial ecosystems and synthetic metal-organic complexes. Bhattacharyya has considerable experience with synchrotron radiation-based techniques including XAS, STXM and XRD and has been a regular user at SSRL, ALS, CLS and APS since 2008 which has resulted in peer-reviewed publications in top journals.

Sarah EJ Bowman, Hauptman Woodward Institute
Sarah EJ Bowman is the Director of the National Crystallization Center and an Associate Research Scientist at Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute in Buffalo, NY.  Her research focuses on developing new methods for crystallization of biomolecules, for detecting very small crystals, and for in situ X-ray data collection.  Her research lab is also interested in developing techniques that combine crystallographic and spectroscopic approaches to answer fundamental questions about protein biochemistry, especially in proteins that contain metals.  Her engagement with synchrotron facilities began as a graduate student with Kara Bren, doing Nuclear Resonance Vibrational Spectroscopy at APS on heme containing proteins. She began working with crystallography as a postdoc with Cathy Drennan at MIT. Throughout her career, she has collected X-ray diffraction data at APS, NSLS, NSLS-II, LCLS and SSRL. Since beginning her independent career, she has been actively involved with several projects at SSRL beamlines and collaborates with beamline scientists. She has organized the Metals in Structural Biology workshop at the SSRL/LCLS User's Meeting annually since the first occurrence of the workshop in 2018. She is the current Chair of BioMac SIG in the American Crystallographic Association and is very involved in the structural biology community.  She is committed to the long-term success of the SSRL facility and its users, and seeks election to the UEC to continue and expand her involvement.

Hao Chen, Stanford University
Dr. Hao Chen is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at Pulse Institute of SLAC, investigating critical interfacial processes for solar hydrogen production and nitrogen reduction under the co-supervision of Prof. Amy Cordones-Hahn and Prof. Kelly Gaffney. His research journey has been enriched by my time as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (2020-2022), under the esteemed mentorship of Prof. Miquel Salmeron, where he delved into the intricacies of catalysis. Chen's expertise spans a diverse range of experimental techniques, including synchrotron-based methods like APXPS and XAS, advanced nano-fabrication processes, and scanning probe microscopy. He is now actively involved in time-resolved XPS/XAS, devoting to elucidating the charge transfer dynamics among photocatalytic processes.

Jinyi Chen, University of Arkansas
Dr. Jingyi Chen is a Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. She received her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Washington, Seattle, working with Younan Xia. She worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Brookhaven National Laboratory and then a Research Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Washington University in St. Louis. In 2010, she started her independent career as a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 2016, and to Professor in 2020. Her research focuses on rational design and synthesis of functional nanomaterials for energy conversion and human-health related applications. Her group emphasizes on precise synthesis of nanostructures, aiming to efficient and sustainable use of materials in applications, and fundamentally understand materials synthesis-structure-property-performance relationship under operando conditions. She and her group have been X-ray users at SSRL since 2017 and established collaboration with Dr. Simon Bare and his group at Co-ACCESS, focusing on in situ/operando characterization of nonprecious metal nanostructures for electrocatalysis.

Leilani Conradson, LCLS User Research Administration Manager
Leilani Conradson joined the User Office of the Linac Cohrerent Lightsource, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, in 2017. Prior to moving to SLAC, Leilani was the Executive Assistant, Program Manager and Experiment Coordinator at the Lujan Cetner at LANSCE, Los Alamos Neutron Science Center at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Amy Cordones-Hahn, PULSE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory/Stanford University
Amy Cordones-Hahn is an Associate Staff Scientist in the PULSE Institute at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Her research interests revolve around understanding how photoexcitation of electronic excited states drives chemical reactions of functional transition metal complexes, such as molecular photocatalysts. Amy uses time-resolved x-ray spectroscopy to resolve photochemical reactions in real-time and is interested in helping to grow these capabilities and build a larger ultrafast science user community at SSRL.

Lisa Dunn, SSRL User Research Administration
Lisa has worked at SSRL since 1986, and has been part of the User Research Administration team since 2000. Lisa manages the administration proposal review and scheduling for macromolecular crystallography and biological small angle scattering beam lines. Lisa earned her Bachelor of Science degree from San Jose State University.

James P. Evans, Utah State University
James Evans is Professor of Geosciences at Utah State University. He received his Ph.D. and MS in Geology from Texas A&M University. His research interests include rock deformation from the micro scale to the map scale. Quantitative analysis of fluid-rock interactions as applied to earthquake processes, energy resources, and CO₂ sequestration. 

Woodward W. Fischer, California Institute of Technology
Woodward W. Fischer, Professor of Geobiology at CaltechPhD Harvard, BA Colorado College.  I am often referred to by my nickname “Woody”.  I am a geobiologist that combines techniques from field geology, analytical chemistry, and biology to understand and explore the relationships between life and surface environments through diverse and fundamental transitions in our planet's history.   In addition to working on Mars Science Laboratory and Mars2020 missions, his group studies the emergence and early evolution of life, the innovation of photosynthesis and the rise of environmental dioxygen, and ancient mass extinctions.

Graham George, University of Saskatchewan
Graham George was educated at King's College London (B.Sc., 1979) and the University of Sussex (D. Phil., 1983). After postdoctoral fellowships at Sussex and Exxon Research & Engineering Co. in New Jersey USA, he continued at Exxon as a Principal Investigator. Graham was Exxon Participating Research Team spokesperson for both NSLS X10-C and SSRL 6-2 between 1988 and 1992. In 1992 Graham married fellow synchrotron radiation researcher Ingrid Pickering and moved to the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory where he held the position of Physicist until 2003. In 2003 he became full professor and Canada Research Chair in X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy at the University of Saskatchewan. Graham's first experiments using synchrotron radiation were on the EMBL XAS beamline at DESY Hamburg in April 1982, and his first experiments at SSRL were on Beam Line 7-3 in December 1983. Since that first run at SSRL Graham has taken part in over 185 different beamtime experiments at SSRL, and has published more than 270 papers using data collected at SSRL. His research bridges the chemical, the environmental and the life sciences and includes a career-long interest in metalloenzymes, toxic metals and fuel science.

Nicholas Hartley, SLAC (LCLS Chair; Ex Officio)
Nick Hartley is an Assoicate Scientist at SLAC National Accelertaor Laboratory, with a focus on matter in extreme conditions (MEC). Nick is the 2024 Chair of the LCLS Users' Executive Committee and serves in an ex officio capacity on the SSRL UEC.

Peter Jensen, Washington State University
Peter Jensen is a graduate student in the nuclear nanotechnology lab under Professor Liane Moreau in the Department of Chemistry at Washington State University studying nanoscale properties of lanthanide and actinide materials and their doped mixtures using X-ray spectroscopic characterization techniques. He has lead and submitted an active proposal at SSRL and has experience working at other US synchrotrons including APS and CHESS. At these synchrotrons, Peter has gained experience with collecting and processing XAS data, including HERFD-XANES. He has assisted on some of the first uranium HERFD-XANES measurements at APS 13-IDE. Peter also has experience designing sample holders for XAS measurements and navigating the process of measuring radioactive samples. Peter would like to work towards streamlining processes for measuring radioactive samples at SSRL and aims to serve as an advocate for early career education in synchrotron science.

Sheridon Kelly, UC Berkeley
Sheridon Kelly is a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, working in the John Arnold lab, as well as the Minasian lab at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Sheridon's research focuses on the covalency and electronic structure of f-electrons in actinide nanomaterials. She's been a user at SSRL for the past 2 years, at beamline 11-2, where she studies the metal L3-edge of the lanthanides and actinides.

Saravanan Kuppan, Rivian Automotive
Saravanan (Sara) Kuppan is a Senior Staff Material Engineer at Rivian Automotive LLC, leading the development of cathode materials for Electric Adventure Vehicles. Prior to Rivian, he was a Lead engineer at Robert Bosch Research and Technology Center, Sunnyvale. He moved to the US in 2013 as a Post doc at LBNL after completing his Ph.D in Chemistry at the National University of Singapore. For the past 17 years he has worked on various aspects of rechargeable batteries with emphasis on understanding the structure property relationship of electrode active materials using advanced analytical techniques. His first beamtime at SSRL was on Beam Line 10-1 in Aug 2013. Since that first run at SSRL Saravanan has participated in more than 100 different beamtime experiments at SSRL, ALS, APS and NSLS II and has published more than 50 papers and filed 20 patents. He strongly believes that synchrotrons will continue to play a crucial role in the US clean energy transition.

Cathy Knotts, SSRL User Research Administration 
Cathy has managed  SSRL User Research Administration since November 2000, taking on the additional responsibilities for establishing and managing a joint SSRL/LCLS User Office from 2007-2015 (LCLS began operations with the first user assisted commissioning experiments in 2009). Before joining SLAC, Cathy managed administrative operations and corporate communications in the biotechnology industry (1994-2000). Prior to moving to California to help start a biotech company, she was a management analyst for the National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health in Maryland. Cathy graduated from the University of Maryland majoring in Health Science and Policy.

Cara Laasch, SSRL User Research Administration Manager
Cara Laasch joined SSRL in June 2024 as the new SSRL User Research Administration Manager. Cara brings several years of experience in user administration from being part of the NSLS-II team. She has a significant background in communications, including as a science writer. She also has keen interest in accelerators, beam lines and instrumentation having worked at DESY as part of her physics education.

Levi McClelland, University of Montana
Levi McClelland is a Research Assistant Professor and Manager of the Integrated Structural Biology Core at the University of Montana (UM). He received his PhD in Biochemistry and Biophysics (2015) in Bruce Bowler’s Lab (UM) studying protein stability and conformational changes associated with pH sensitivity. To better understand structural effects of conformational change, he collaborated with Stephen Sprang’s Lab (UM) to solve novel cytochrome c crystal structures of interest. Levi then joined Dr. Sprang’s Lab, who has a long-standing relationship with and regularly utilizes SSRL, as a post-doc. Postdoctoral work in the Sprang Lab yielded further experience in protein macromolecular crystallography and small-angle X-ray scattering, solving the structure of G-alpha protein subunit i complexed to its chaperone/nucleotide exchange factor Ric-8A. In 2020, he began managing the Integrated Structural Biology Core – a core facility of the Center for Biomolecular and Structural Dynamics COBRE at UM, providing protein expression and macromolecular structural services (including acting as the point-of-contact/spokesperson to SSRL) for the UM community. Levi’s research focuses on understanding the interactions and regulation of Ric-8A and Ric-8B towards G-alpha proteins and their binding partners.

Blaine Mooers (link sends e-mail), University of Oklahoma Health Science Center
Blaine Mooers is an Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC). In addition to faculty, he serves as the director of the Laboratory of Biomolecular Structure and Function, which is also a core facility for the Oklahoma COBRE in Structural Biology. Blaine began macromolecular crystallography as a graduate student by working on problems in DNA structure with Dr. Shing Ho at Oregon State University. He worked on problems in protein structure as a post-doc with Dr. Brian Matthews at the University of Oregon. While a post-doc, he used synchrotron radiation to collect atomic resolution data from crystals of proteins, thanks to expert guidance in data collection from SSRL staff. He determined the structures of several proteins and RNAs by direct methods with data collected at SSRL. Blaine has been a proposal spokesperson continuously since 2000, first in on OUHSC structural studies of RNAs and proteins from the unique RNA editing system in the mitochondrion of trypanosomes. He also collaborates with several OUHSC labs on structural studies of proteins related to influenza and cancer biology. He has been involved in SAXS studies since 2011 and is an active user of BL 4-2. Blaine believes that crystallography will continue to play a vital role in integrative structural biology. He served as chair of the SSRL User Executive Committee (UEC) during the existential budget crisis of 2017. He seeks re-election to the UEC to represent the concerns and needs of the users of macromolecular crystallography. 

Liane Moreau, Washington State University
Liane Moreau has been an SSRL user on XAS and RXES beamlines since 2017. She is currently a faculty member in the department of chemistry at Washington State University, where she leads a research group towards exploring nanoscale properties of f-element materials and the structure of their surfaces and interfaces through pairing new synthetic developments with in-depth X-ray characterization. Liane completed her PhD in Materials Science and Engineering under the direction of Michael Bedzyk and Chad Mirkin at Northwestern University. Subsequently, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow under Corwin Booth at Lawrence Berkeley Lab in the heavy element chemistry group. Historically, Liane's work has relied upon synchrotron XAS and SAXS studies, specifically aiming to map the growth and transformation processes involved in the synthesis of nanoparticles, spanning the periodic table from first row transition metals to actinides. She has experience developing containment strategies for safely measuring radioactive samples and analysis strategies for systems with complex backgrounds. Liane had her first taste of synchrotron XAS work in 2009 as an undergraduate at Cornell University studying nanoscale oxidation processes and hasn't stopped since. She has experience working at CHESS, APS and ALS in addition to SSRL and looks forward to contributing to the continued growth and development of the synchrotron community for years to come.

Michael Jacob Pushie, University of Saskatchewan
Jake Pushie is a full-time staff scientist in the Department of Surgery at the University of Saskatchewan (Canada). My first visit to SSRL was in 2003. Autumn 2007 I became a regular user and over the past 15 years have had the pleasure of working and collaborating alongside some of the most amazing scientists and friends while visiting and collecting data at SSRL. My areas of interest are in the role of bio-metals in human health and disease, with particular focus on transition metal trafficking and coordination structure, as well as changes in trace elements associated with blood-brain barrier disruption and neurodegeneration. I have 66 peer reviewed publications, 35 of these have employed bio-spectroscopy beamlines at SSRL and 17 employed X-ray fluorescence microscopy beamlines at SSRL - and I feel like I’m only getting started! Much like the loss of wasted photons when we have beam, the loss of CPU cycles is also of concern to me as I use a broad range of computational chemistry tools at my home institution to help inform most of my synchrotron research. I was very impressed with how SSRL as a facility, and its staff, stepped-up and aided the user community during the pandemic. This only cemented my firm belief that SSRL is a facility like no other that researchers can rely on to enable the carrying-out of great science, no matter what. As a user I am also keenly aware of how difficult it is to train new users and grow the community. Such endeavours and outreach must start from within the user community itself and as a member of the UEC I envision opportunities to facilitate building user-led mentorships to educate, advise, and support new users - while also representing the needs and future interests of the existing user community.

Robert Root, University of Arizona
Rob Root is a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Science at the University of Arizona where he applies tools of environmental geochemistry to understand mechanisms that control the mobility and bioavailability of nutrients and toxic chemicals in the environment. Rob has been using synchrotron based X-ray techniques in the soft, tender, and hard energy range for over 20 years for spectroscopic and imaging analysis of in vivo and in vitro alteration of geomedia in response to disequilibrium imposed by organisms, weathering, and climate to understand how chemical speciation impacts solubility, bioaccessibility, and mobility in environmental systems. His research combines macro-scale geochemical measurements of the release and uptake of stoichiometric or surface complexed elements between the solid and aqueous phases, constrained by atomic-scale spectroscopies and thermodynamic modeling, to develop predictive models of lability or secondary mineral precipitation. Rob is an interdisciplinary environmental researcher working to reveal a basic understanding of processes and reactions at the particle-surface interface relevant to human health.

Linda Vogt (link sends e-mail), University of Saskatchewan
Linda Vogt is a graduate student in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Saskatchewan. She has been a synchrotron user since 2012, and has operated various beamlines at the CLS, APS, and SSRL. She worked at the CLS as a casual floor coordinator from 2015 - 2019 and as part of the CLS outreach team from 2017 - 2020.

Beth Wurzburg (link sends e-mail), Oakland, CA
Beth was a Research Associate at the LBNL Joint Genome Institute. Previously, Beth was a Research Associate in the laboratory of Prof. Ted Jardetzky. She trained as a protein biochemist (Don Wiley's laboratory) and as a crystallographer (Ted Jardetzky's laboratory), and she has been collecting data at synchrotrons since 1995. Her research interests include biophysical studies of proteins of the immune system and of human pathogens.

Blaine Mooers, University of Oklahoma Health Science Center, Oklahoma City, OK
Blaine Mooers is an Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC). In addition to faculty, he serves as the director of the Laboratory of Biomolecular Structure and Function, which is also a core facility for the Oklahoma COBRE in Structural Biology. Blaine began macromolecular crystallography as a graduate student by working on problems in DNA structure with Dr. Shing Ho at Oregon State University. He worked on problems in protein structure as a post-doc with Dr. Brian Matthews at the University of Oregon. While a post-doc, he used synchrotron radiation to collect atomic resolution data from crystals of proteins, thanks to expert guidance in data collection from SSRL staff. He determined the structures of several proteins and RNAs by direct methods with data collected at SSRL. Blaine has been a proposal spokesperson continuously since 2000, first in on OUHSC structural studies of RNAs and proteins from the unique RNA editing system in the mitochondrion of trypanosomes. He also collaborates with several OUHSC labs on structural studies of proteins related to influenza and cancer biology. He has been involved in SAXS studies since 2011 and is an active user of BL 4-2. Blaine believes that crystallography will continue to play a vital role in integrative structural biology. He served as chair of the SSRL User Executive Committee (UEC) during the existential budget crisis of 2017. He seeks re-election to the UEC to represent the concerns and needs of the users of macromolecular crystallography.

Isabel Bogacz, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA
Isabel Bogacz is a PhD candidate in physical chemistry at University of California; Berkeley. She obtained a B.S. in chemistry from St. Lawrence University in Canton NY. For her honors thesis she used Raman spectroscopy to make in situ measurements of formic acid in materials for artificial photosynthesis. As a member of the Yano, Yachandra, Kern lab at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab she studies photosystem II's involvement in the water-splitting reaction step of photosynthesis. She regularly uses SSRL to measure XES and XAS of photosystem II and model compounds to gain geometric and electronic structural inside into the mechanism of water-splitting.

Amy Cordones-Hahn, PULSE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory/Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Amy Cordones-Hahn is an Associate Staff Scientist in the PULSE Institute at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Her research interests revolve around understanding how photoexcitation of electronic excited states drives chemical reactions of functional transition metal complexes, such as molecular photocatalysts. Amy uses time-resolved x-ray spectroscopy to resolve photochemical reactions in real-time and is interested in helping to grow these capabilities and build a larger ultrafast science user community at SSRL.

Lisa Dunn, SSRL User Research Administration, Menlo Park, CA
Lisa has worked at SSRL since 1986, and has been part of the User Research Administration team since 2000. Lisa manages the administration proposal review and scheduling for macromolecular crystallography and biological small angle scattering beam lines. Lisa earned her Bachelor of Science degree from San Jose State University.

James P. Evans, Utah State University, Logan, UT
James Evans is Professor of Geosciences at Utah State University. He received his Ph.D. and MS in Geology from Texas A&M University. His research interests include rock deformation from the micro scale to the map scale. Quantitative analysis of fluid-rock interactions as applied to earthquake processes, energy resources, and CO₂ sequestration. 

Graham George, University of Saskatchevan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Graham George was educated at King's College London (B.Sc., 1979) and the University of Sussex (D. Phil., 1983). After postdoctoral fellowships at Sussex and Exxon Research & Engineering Co. in New Jersey USA, he continued at Exxon as a Principal Investigator. Graham was Exxon Participating Research Team spokesperson for both NSLS X10-C and SSRL 6-2 between 1988 and 1992. In 1992 Graham married fellow synchrotron radiation researcher Ingrid Pickering and moved to the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory where he held the position of Physicist until 2003. In 2003 he became full professor and Canada Research Chair in X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy at the University of Saskatchewan. Graham's first experiments using synchrotron radiation were on the EMBL XAS beamline at DESY Hamburg in April 1982, and his first experiments at SSRL were on Beam Line 7-3 in December 1983. Since that first run at SSRL Graham has taken part in over 185 different beamtime experiments at SSRL, and has published more than 270 papers using data collected at SSRL. His research bridges the chemical, the environmental and the life sciences and includes a career-long interest in metalloenzymes, toxic metals and fuel science.

Simon George,  STAR Cryoelectronics LLC, Richmond, CA
Simon J. George has been an SSRL User for almost 30 years. After graduating from the Universities of London and East Anglia and working as a postdoc at East Anglia, he moved to the NSLS where he measured his first EXAFS spectrum. Since then he has been employed at the University of California, Davis, the John Innes Centre (Norwich, UK) and at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Much of his career has been focused on studying problems in biological chemistry and related materials, using synchrotron-based X-ray spectroscopies and X-ray imaging, together with laboratory techniques. While most of his synchrotron work has been performed at SSRL and the ALS, he has also measured data at the APS, CLS and SPring-8. Today, he owns his own scientific consulting company, Simon Scientific, which focuses on using synchrotron and related techniques, as well as developing novel spectroscopic instrumentation. He also collaborates with and is employed by a small business, STAR Cryoelectronics LLC, where he a Principal Investigator funded by the NIH to develop applications for cryogenic X-ray detectors for use in both the laboratory and at synchrotron lightsources. Simon is enthusiastic about the world-class facilities and outstanding User support culture that define SSRL and strongly believes in supporting SSRL's long-term future.

Cathy Knotts, SSRL User Research Administration Manager, Menlo Park, CA
Cathy has managed  SSRL User Research Administration since November 2000, taking on the additional responsibilities for establishing and managing a joint SSRL/LCLS User Office from 2007-2015 (LCLS began operations with the first user assisted commissioning experiments in 2009). Before joining SLAC, Cathy managed administrative operations and corporate communications in the biotechnology industry (1994-2000). Prior to moving to California to help start a biotech company, she was a management analyst for the National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health in Maryland. Cathy graduated from the University of Maryland majoring in Health Science and Policy.

Ailiena Maggiolo, California Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Ailiena Maggiolo is a graduate student in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. She has been a user on the Macromolecular Crystallography and XAS beamlines at SSRL since her first visit as an undergraduate in 2015. She has also been a user at APS, CHESS, and ALS. She is currently studying nitrogenase proteins in the lab of Prof. Douglas Rees, where she aims to combine XAS and MMX to understand complex metal clusters and their dynamics. As a member of the bioinorganic community, she has been particularly thankful for the diversity of methods that SSRL has made possible. Her research has depended on the tremendous achievements and collaborative nature of the beamline scientists and staff.

Stefan Minasian, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA
Stefan Minasian is a Staff Scientist in the Chemical Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Research in the Minasian Lab addresses current challenges in the energy sciences by leveraging expertise in inorganic synthesis with advanced methods for physical characterization. A central goal is to understand the design principles controlling the properties of molecules and solids containing the lanthanide and actinide elements. A wide range of existing and emerging techniques in imaging and spectroscopy have been employed through close collaboration with staff at lightsources including SSRL and the ALS, CLS, and APS. The work occurs primarily at the interface of coordination chemistry, materials science, and inorganic spectroscopy, and relies on innovative methods to synthesize and characterize compounds that are highly reactive or otherwise difficult to isolate and study.

Liane Moreau, Washington State University, Pullman, WA
Liane Moreau has been an SSRL user on XAS and RXES beamlines since 2017. She is currently a faculty member in the department of chemistry at Washington State University, where she leads a research group towards exploring nanoscale properties of f-element materials and the structure of their surfaces and interfaces through pairing new synthetic developments with in-depth X-ray characterization. Liane completed her PhD in Materials Science and Engineering under the direction of Michael Bedzyk and Chad Mirkin at Northwestern University. Subsequently, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow under Corwin Booth at Lawrence Berkeley Lab in the heavy element chemistry group. Historically, Liane's work has relied upon synchrotron XAS and SAXS studies, specifically aiming to map the growth and transformation processes involved in the synthesis of nanoparticles, spanning the periodic table from first row transition metals to actinides. She has experience developing containment strategies for safely measuring radioactive samples and analysis strategies for systems with complex backgrounds. Liane had her first taste of synchrotron XAS work in 2009 as an undergraduate at Cornell University studying nanoscale oxidation processes and hasn't stopped since. She has experience working at CHESS, APS and ALS in addition to SSRL and looks forward to contributing to the continued growth and development of the synchrotron community for years to come.

Andrew Riscoe, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Andrew Riscoe is a PhD candidate in Matteo Cargnello's group in the Chemical Engineering Department at Stanford University. His research interests include XAS characterization of microporous polymer encapsulated metal catalysts for several small molecule transformations, including selective oxidation of methane to methanol.

Edward Snell, Hauptman Woodward Institute, Buffalo, NY
Edward Snell is President and CEO of the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, Buffalo New York, an independent not-for profit research institute. He is also a professor in the Department of Materials Design and Innovation at SUNY Buffalo and adjunct faculty at the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. His research is supported by the NSF, NIH, and NASA and focuses on dynamic systems with an interest in metalloproteins. He has been an active and continuous user of SSRL since 1996 and a user at ESRF and SRS before that. His background is in crystallography with a gradual shift to complementary techniques including Small Angle X-ray Scattering using SSRL BL 4-2.  His BioSAXS work, in close collaboration with SSRL staff, has led to an IUCr Monograph on Biological Solution Scattering published by Oxford University Press. He is also the PI of NSF funded BioXFEL Science and Technology Center which explores ultrafast dynamics and in it's current renewal focuses on the complete biological dynamics of systems. Edward (Eddie) knows SSRL and has been a strong advocate for many years. He wants to see SSRL do well in the future and and to continue to support it's users most effectively.

Kelly Lynn Summers, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 
Kelly Summers is a postdoc in Physiology at Johns Hopkins University. She received her PhD at the University of Saskatchewan, Department of Chemistry. She received an MSc and a BSc (Honors) in Biology from the University of Western Ontario and received an Alexander Graham Bell Canadian Graduate Scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to support her PhD research. She was a fellow in the Training in Health Research Using Synchrotron Techniques (THRUST) program and part of the Molecular and Environmental Sciences Group at the University of Saskatchewan, led by Canada Research Chairs, Profs. Graham George and Ingrid Pickering. Kelly has been involved in the university community through participation in departmental committees, including the Chemistry Course Council. She has also engaged in several conference organization activities including the semi-annual Graduate Student Symposium and the annual THRUST Retreat. Throughout her graduate research Kelly operated numerous beamlines at several synchrotron facilities, including the Advanced Photon Source, the Australian Synchrotron, and the Canadian Light Source, in addition to frequent runs at SSRL. Kelly received an NSERC Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement to support her travel to the Australian Synchrotron and her studies there. She has experience in both x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and x-ray fluorescence Imaging techniques and uses both in her research, as well as for collaborative projects. In fact, SSRL’s biological XAS Beam Line 7-3 has been key to her research on the role of metals, particularly copper(II), in the Alzheimer’s brain and how these metals may be manipulated using metal-binding drugs.

Linda Vogt, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Linda Vogt is a graduate student in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Saskatchewan. She has been a synchrotron user since 2012, and has operated various beamlines at the CLS, APS, and SSRL. She worked at the CLS as a casual floor coordinator from 2015 - 2019 and as part of the CLS outreach team from 2017 - 2020.

Beth Wurzburg, Oakland, CA
Beth was a Research Associate at the LBNL Joint Genome Institute. Previously, Beth was a Research Associate in the laboratory of Prof. Ted Jardetzky. She trained as a protein biochemist (Don Wiley's laboratory) and as a crystallographer (Ted Jardetzky's laboratory), and she has been collecting data at synchrotrons since 1995. Her research interests include biophysical studies of proteins of the immune system and of human pathogens.

Limei Zhang, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE
Dr. Limei Zhang, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has been an SSRL user on XAS and Macromolecular Crystallography beamlines since 2004. Limei received her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Saskatchewan working with Prof. Graham N George (2004-2009), followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology with Prof. Douglas C. Rees (2009-2014). She is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry and the Redox Biology Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The Zhang group's research focuses on the structural and mechanistic investigation of metalloproteins in redox reactions and stress response, using a combination of synchrotron light-based techniques (X-ray crystallography, XAFS and X-ray fluorescence imaging) and biochemical approaches. Limei has co-authored 26 peer-reviewed publications, among which over 20 publications contain the research conducted at SSRL. She has recently received an NSF CAREER Award and NIH MIRA Award. Limei is enthusiastic about advancing techniques at SSRL and LCLS by combining the strengths of X-ray crystallography and XAS. She is looking forward to contributing to the synchrotron community at SSRL.

Isabel Bogacz, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA
Isabel Bogacz is a PhD candidate in physical chemistry at University of California; Berkeley. She obtained a B.S. in chemistry from St. Lawrence University in Canton NY. For her honors thesis she used Raman spectroscopy to make in situ measurements of formic acid in materials for artificial photosynthesis. As a member of the Yano, Yachandra, Kern lab at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab she studies photosystem II's involvement in the water-splitting reaction step of photosynthesis. She regularly uses SSRL to measure XES and XAS of photosystem II and model compounds to gain geometric and electronic structural inside into the mechanism of water-splitting.

Amy Cordones-Hahn, PULSE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory/Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Amy Cordones-Hahn is an Associate Staff Scientist in the PULSE Institute at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Her research interests revolve around understanding how photoexcitation of electronic excited states drives chemical reactions of functional transition metal complexes, such as molecular photocatalysts. Amy uses time-resolved x-ray spectroscopy to resolve photochemical reactions in real-time and is interested in helping to grow these capabilities and build a larger ultrafast science user community at SSRL.

Lisa Dunn, SSRL User Research Administration, Menlo Park, CA
Lisa has worked at SSRL since 1986, and has been part of the User Research Administration team since 2000. Lisa manages the administration proposal review and scheduling for macromolecular crystallography and biological small angle scattering beam lines. Lisa earned her Bachelor of Science degree from San Jose State University.

James P. Evans, Utah State University,Logan, UT 
James Evans is Professor of Geosciences at Utah State University. He received his Ph.D. and MS in Geology from Texas A&M University. His research interests include rock deformation from the micro scale to the map scale. Quantitative analysis of fluid-rock interactions as applied to earthquake processes, energy resources, and CO₂ sequestration. 

Graham George, University of Saskatchevan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Graham George was educated at King's College London (B.Sc., 1979) and the University of Sussex (D. Phil., 1983). After postdoctoral fellowships at Sussex and Exxon Research & Engineering Co. in New Jersey USA, he continued at Exxon as a Principal Investigator. Graham was Exxon Participating Research Team spokesperson for both NSLS X10-C and SSRL 6-2 between 1988 and 1992. In 1992 Graham married fellow synchrotron radiation researcher Ingrid Pickering and moved to the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory where he held the position of Physicist until 2003. In 2003 he became full professor and Canada Research Chair in X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy at the University of Saskatchewan. Graham's first experiments using synchrotron radiation were on the EMBL XAS beamline at DESY Hamburg in April 1982, and his first experiments at SSRL were on Beam Line 7-3 in December 1983. Since that first run at SSRL Graham has taken part in over 185 different beamtime experiments at SSRL, and has published more than 270 papers using data collected at SSRL. His research bridges the chemical, the environmental and the life sciences and includes a career-long interest in metalloenzymes, toxic metals and fuel science.

Simon George,  STAR Cryoelectronics LLC, Richmond, CA
Simon J. George has been an SSRL User for almost 30 years. After graduating from the Universities of London and East Anglia and working as a postdoc at East Anglia, he moved to the NSLS where he measured his first EXAFS spectrum. Since then he has been employed at the University of California, Davis, the John Innes Centre (Norwich, UK) and at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Much of his career has been focused on studying problems in biological chemistry and related materials, using synchrotron-based X-ray spectroscopies and X-ray imaging, together with laboratory techniques. While most of his synchrotron work has been performed at SSRL and the ALS, he has also measured data at the APS, CLS and SPring-8. Today, he owns his own scientific consulting company, Simon Scientific, which focuses on using synchrotron and related techniques, as well as developing novel spectroscopic instrumentation. He also collaborates with and is employed by a small business, STAR Cryoelectronics LLC, where he a Principal Investigator funded by the NIH to develop applications for cryogenic X-ray detectors for use in both the laboratory and at synchrotron lightsources. Simon is enthusiastic about the world-class facilities and outstanding User support culture that define SSRL and strongly believes in supporting SSRL's long-term future.

Cathy Knotts, >SSRL User Research Administration  Manager, Menlo Park, CA
Cathy has managed  SSRL User Research Administration since November 2000, taking on the additional responsibilities for establishing and managing a joint SSRL/LCLS User Office from 2007-2015 (LCLS began operations with the first user assisted commissioning experiments in 2009). Before joining SLAC, Cathy managed administrative operations and corporate communications in the biotechnology industry (1994-2000). Prior to moving to California to help start a biotech company, she was a management analyst for the National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health in Maryland. Cathy graduated from the University of Maryland majoring in Health Science and Policy.

Ailiena Maggiolo, California Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Ailiena Maggiolo is a graduate student in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. She has been a user on the Macromolecular Crystallography and XAS beamlines at SSRL since her first visit as an undergraduate in 2015. She has also been a user at APS, CHESS, and ALS. She is currently studying nitrogenase proteins in the lab of Prof. Douglas Rees, where she aims to combine XAS and MMX to understand complex metal clusters and their dynamics. As a member of the bioinorganic community, she has been particularly thankful for the diversity of methods that SSRL has made possible. Her research has depended on the tremendous achievements and collaborative nature of the beamline scientists and staff.

Stefan Minasian, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA
Stefan Minasian is a Staff Scientist in the Chemical Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Research in the Minasian Lab addresses current challenges in the energy sciences by leveraging expertise in inorganic synthesis with advanced methods for physical characterization. A central goal is to understand the design principles controlling the properties of molecules and solids containing the lanthanide and actinide elements. A wide range of existing and emerging techniques in imaging and spectroscopy have been employed through close collaboration with staff at lightsources including SSRL and the ALS, CLS, and APS. The work occurs primarily at the interface of coordination chemistry, materials science, and inorganic spectroscopy, and relies on innovative methods to synthesize and characterize compounds that are highly reactive or otherwise difficult to isolate and study.

Blaine Mooers, University of Oklahoma Health Science Center, Oklahoma City, OK
Blaine Mooers is an Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC). In addition to faculty, he serves as the director of the Laboratory of Biomolecular Structure and Function, which is also a core facility for the Oklahoma COBRE in Structural Biology. Blaine began macromolecular crystallography as a graduate student by working on problems in DNA structure with Dr. Shing Ho at Oregon State University. He worked on problems in protein structure as a post-doc with Dr. Brian Matthews at the University of Oregon. While a post-doc, he used synchrotron radiation to collect atomic resolution data from crystals of proteins, thanks to expert guidance in data collection from SSRL staff. He determined the structures of several proteins and RNAs by direct methods with data collected at SSRL. Blaine has been a proposal spokesperson continuously since 2000, first in on OUHSC structural studies of RNAs and proteins from the unique RNA editing system in the mitochondrion of trypanosomes. He also collaborates with several OUHSC labs on structural studies of proteins related to influenza and cancer biology. He has been involved in SAXS studies since 2011 and is an active user of BL 4-2. Blaine believes that crystallography will continue to play a vital role in integrative structural biology. He served as chair of the SSRL User Executive Committee (UEC) during the existential budget crisis of 2017. He seeks re-election to the UEC to represent the concerns and needs of the users of macromolecular crystallography.

Liane Moreau, Washington State University, Pullman, WA
Liane Moreau has been an SSRL user on XAS and RXES beamlines since 2017. She is currently a faculty member in the department of chemistry at Washington State University, where she leads a research group towards exploring nanoscale properties of f-element materials and the structure of their surfaces and interfaces through pairing new synthetic developments with in-depth X-ray characterization. Liane completed her PhD in Materials Science and Engineering under the direction of Michael Bedzyk and Chad Mirkin at Northwestern University. Subsequently, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow under Corwin Booth at Lawrence Berkeley Lab in the heavy element chemistry group. Historically, Liane's work has relied upon synchrotron XAS and SAXS studies, specifically aiming to map the growth and transformation processes involved in the synthesis of nanoparticles, spanning the periodic table from first row transition metals to actinides. She has experience developing containment strategies for safely measuring radioactive samples and analysis strategies for systems with complex backgrounds. Liane had her first taste of synchrotron XAS work in 2009 as an undergraduate at Cornell University studying nanoscale oxidation processes and hasn't stopped since. She has experience working at CHESS, APS and ALS in addition to SSRL and looks forward to contributing to the continued growth and development of the synchrotron community for years to come.

Rebecca Page, University of Connecticut, Farmington CT
Rebecca Page was the Donna B. Cosulich Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Arizona. She also currently serves the CBC Associate Department Head for Research and Faculty Affairs, interim. Rebecca began macromolecular crystallography as a graduate student studying conformational change in actin with Dr. C.E. Schutt at Princeton University. She then studied neuronal metabolic proteins as a post-doc with Dr. Ray Stevens. During her last year at Scripps, she also served as the crystallomics core director for the Joint Center for Structural Genomics (JCSG) yeast proteome project with Drs. Ray Stevens and Ian Wilson. During this time, she worked very closely with the JCSG group at SSRL for the development and optimization of crystal screening and data collection at SSRL. In 2004, she joined the faculty at Brown University, being an active user of multiple X-ray crystallography and SAXS beamlines during her tenure there (2004-2016). In some years, she served as an instructor for RapiData at NSLS. Her commitment to synchrotron facilities includes serving on multiple proposal panels (from 2014-2016, she served as a proposal reviewer for ALS and in 2016-2018, she served as served on the proposal review panel for the macromolecular crystallography and SAXS beamlines at NSLS-II) and also as an external reviewer. Throughout her career, she has collected data at NSLS, NSLS-II, APS, ALS, Diamond and SSRL for projects focused on signaling and its role in disease. As a long-time user of the SSRL beamlines, she is deeply interested in the long-term success of both the SSRL facility and especially its users. Thus, she is seeking election to the UEC to represent the needs of the users of macromolecular crystallography at SSRL.

Andrew Riscoe, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Andrew Riscoe is a PhD candidate in Matteo Cargnello's group in the Chemical Engineering Department at Stanford University. His research interests include XAS characterization of microporous polymer encapsulated metal catalysts for several small molecule transformations, including selective oxidation of methane to methanol.

Angelia Seyfferth, University of Delaware, Newark, DE
Angelia Seyfferth is Associate Professor of Biogeochemistry and Plant-Soil Interactions at the University of Delaware where she works to understand the soil biogeochemical processes that dictate contaminant and nutrient cycling and uptake by plants. Her group is particularly interested in how small-scale soil-chemical processes influence contaminant (e.g., As, Cd, Pb) and nutrient (e.g., Si, P, Fe, S) release or attenuation that have large-scale impacts on human and environmental health. They use advanced analytical techniques such as synchrotron X-ray absorption spectroscopy and imaging to unravel the species distributions of contaminants and nutrients in the rhizosphere and in plant tissues, and mechanisms of uptake by plant roots. Ultimately, they conduct basic research that can be applied to benefit society on a local-to-global scale.

Edward Snell, Hauptman Woodward Institute, Buffalo, NY
Edward Snell is President and CEO of the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, Buffalo New York, an independent not-for profit research institute. He is also a professor in the Department of Materials Design and Innovation at SUNY Buffalo and adjunct faculty at the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. His research is supported by the NSF, NIH, and NASA and focuses on dynamic systems with an interest in metalloproteins. He has been an active and continuous user of SSRL since 1996 and a user at ESRF and SRS before that. His background is in crystallography with a gradual shift to complementary techniques including Small Angle X-ray Scattering using SSRL BL 4-2.  His BioSAXS work, in close collaboration with SSRL staff, has led to an IUCr Monograph on Biological Solution Scattering published by Oxford University Press. He is also the PI of NSF funded BioXFEL Science and Technology Center which explores ultrafast dynamics and in it's current renewal focuses on the complete biological dynamics of systems. Edward (Eddie) knows SSRL and has been a strong advocate for many years. He wants to see SSRL do well in the future and and to continue to support it's users most effectively.

Timothy Stemmler, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI
Tim Stemmler is Full Professor and Associate Chair for the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Wayne State University (WSU). In addition, Tim is an Associate Dean of the WSU Graduate School where he serves as the Director of the Postdoctoral Scholar Office. Tim been using XAS in his research since 1990, while receiving his training under Jim Penner-Hahn at the University of Michigan. After serving as an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the University of Utah, Tim started his career as a new faculty member at WSU in 2000. He has been continuously funded by the NIH and American Heart Association since 2001, and has published over 85 journal articles/reviews/book chapters predominately using XAS in his research. He has presented his work at over 77 conferences/Universities, both nationally and internationally in the past 17 years. He has had 10 PhD students, 5 MS students, and mentored 7 postdoctoral scholars, who have used XAS in their research. He has served on 27 NIH study sections since 2008, and is an active reviewer for the NSF and several International funding agencies. Tim did a sabbatical at SSRL in 2013 with Dr. Keith Hodgson and Dr. Britt Hedman and remains an active user and supporter of SSRL.

Kelly Lynn Summers, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD  
Kelly Summers is a postdoc in Physiology at Johns Hopkins University. She received her PhD at the University of Saskatchewan, Department of Chemistry. She received an MSc and a BSc (Honors) in Biology from the University of Western Ontario and received an Alexander Graham Bell Canadian Graduate Scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to support her PhD research. She was a fellow in the Training in Health Research Using Synchrotron Techniques (THRUST) program and part of the Molecular and Environmental Sciences Group at the University of Saskatchewan, led by Canada Research Chairs, Profs. Graham George and Ingrid Pickering. Kelly has been involved in the university community through participation in departmental committees, including the Chemistry Course Council. She has also engaged in several conference organization activities including the semi-annual Graduate Student Symposium and the annual THRUST Retreat. Throughout her graduate research Kelly operated numerous beamlines at several synchrotron facilities, including the Advanced Photon Source, the Australian Synchrotron, and the Canadian Light Source, in addition to frequent runs at SSRL. Kelly received an NSERC Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement to support her travel to the Australian Synchrotron and her studies there. She has experience in both x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and x-ray fluorescence Imaging techniques and uses both in her research, as well as for collaborative projects. In fact, SSRL’s biological XAS Beam Line 7-3 has been key to her research on the role of metals, particularly copper(II), in the Alzheimer’s brain and how these metals may be manipulated using metal-binding drugs.

Linda Vogt, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Linda Vogt is a graduate student in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Saskatchewan. She has been a synchrotron user since 2012, and has operated various beamlines at the CLS, APS, and SSRL. She worked at the CLS as a casual floor coordinator from 2015 - 2019 and as part of the CLS outreach team from 2017 - 2020.

Beth Wurzburg, LBNL, Joint Genome Institute, Berkeley, CA
Beth was a Research Associate at the LBNL Joint Genome Institute. Previously, Beth was a Research Associate in the laboratory of Prof. Ted Jardetzky. She trained as a protein biochemist (Don Wiley's laboratory) and as a crystallographer (Ted Jardetzky's laboratory), and she has been collecting data at synchrotrons since 1995. Her research interests include biophysical studies of proteins of the immune system and of human pathogens.

Limei Zhang, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE
Dr. Limei Zhang, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has been an SSRL user on XAS and Macromolecular Crystallography beamlines since 2004. Limei received her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Saskatchewan working with Prof. Graham N George (2004-2009), followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology with Prof. Douglas C. Rees (2009-2014). She is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry and the Redox Biology Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The Zhang group's research focuses on the structural and mechanistic investigation of metalloproteins in redox reactions and stress response, using a combination of synchrotron light-based techniques (X-ray crystallography, XAFS and X-ray fluorescence imaging) and biochemical approaches. Limei has co-authored 26 peer-reviewed publications, among which over 20 publications contain the research conducted at SSRL. She has recently received an NSF CAREER Award and NIH MIRA Award. Limei is enthusiastic about advancing techniques at SSRL and LCLS by combining the strengths of X-ray crystallography and XAS. She is looking forward to contributing to the synchrotron community at SSRL.

Isabel Bogacz, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA
Isabel Bogacz is a PhD candidate in physical chemistry at University of California; Berkeley. She obtained a B.S. in chemistry from St. Lawrence University in Canton NY. For her honors thesis she used Raman spectroscopy to make in situ measurements of formic acid in materials for artificial photosynthesis. As a member of the Yano, Yachandra, Kern lab at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab she studies photosystem II's involvement in the water-splitting reaction step of photosynthesis. She regularly uses SSRL to measure XES and XAS of photosystem II and model compounds to gain geometric and electronic structural inside into the mechanism of water-splitting.

Michael Capano, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
Michael Capano is Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. Michael received his PhD from MIT. His research interests are microelectronics and nanotechnology.

Amy Cordones-Hahn, PULSE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory/Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Amy Cordones-Hahn is an Associate Staff Scientist in the PULSE Institute at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Her research interests revolve around understanding how photoexcitation of electronic excited states drives chemical reactions of functional transition metal complexes, such as molecular photocatalysts. Amy uses time-resolved x-ray spectroscopy to resolve photochemical reactions in real-time and is interested in helping to grow these capabilities and build a larger ultrafast science user community at SSRL.

Lisa Dunn, SSRL User Research Administration, Menlo Park, CA
Lisa has worked at SSRL since 1986, and has been part of the User Research Administration team since 2000. Lisa manages the administration proposal review and scheduling for macromolecular crystallography and biological small angle scattering beam lines. Lisa earned her Bachelor of Science degree from San Jose State University.

James P. Evans, Utah State University,Logan, UT 
James Evans is Professor of Geosciences at Utah State University. He received his Ph.D. and MS in Geology from Texas A&M University. His research interests include rock deformation from the micro scale to the map scale. Quantitative analysis of fluid-rock interactions as applied to earthquake processes, energy resources, and CO₂ sequestration. 

Graham George, University of Saskatchevan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Graham George was educated at King's College London (B.Sc., 1979) and the University of Sussex (D. Phil., 1983). After postdoctoral fellowships at Sussex and Exxon Research & Engineering Co. in New Jersey USA, he continued at Exxon as a Principal Investigator. Graham was Exxon Participating Research Team spokesperson for both NSLS X10-C and SSRL 6-2 between 1988 and 1992. In 1992 Graham married fellow synchrotron radiation researcher Ingrid Pickering and moved to the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory where he held the position of Physicist until 2003. In 2003 he became full professor and Canada Research Chair in X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy at the University of Saskatchewan. Graham's first experiments using synchrotron radiation were on the EMBL XAS beamline at DESY Hamburg in April 1982, and his first experiments at SSRL were on Beam Line 7-3 in December 1983. Since that first run at SSRL Graham has taken part in over 185 different beamtime experiments at SSRL, and has published more than 270 papers using data collected at SSRL. His research bridges the chemical, the environmental and the life sciences and includes a career-long interest in metalloenzymes, toxic metals and fuel science.

Simon George,  STAR Cryoelectronics LLC, Richmond, CA
Simon J. George has been an SSRL User for almost 30 years. After graduating from the Universities of London and East Anglia and working as a postdoc at East Anglia, he moved to the NSLS where he measured his first EXAFS spectrum. Since then he has been employed at the University of California, Davis, the John Innes Centre (Norwich, UK) and at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Much of his career has been focused on studying problems in biological chemistry and related materials, using synchrotron-based X-ray spectroscopies and X-ray imaging, together with laboratory techniques. While most of his synchrotron work has been performed at SSRL and the ALS, he has also measured data at the APS, CLS and SPring-8. Today, he owns his own scientific consulting company, Simon Scientific, which focuses on using synchrotron and related techniques, as well as developing novel spectroscopic instrumentation. He also collaborates with and is employed by a small business, STAR Cryoelectronics LLC, where he a Principal Investigator funded by the NIH to develop applications for cryogenic X-ray detectors for use in both the laboratory and at synchrotron lightsources. Simon is enthusiastic about the world-class facilities and outstanding User support culture that define SSRL and strongly believes in supporting SSRL's long-term future.

Cathy Knotts, >SSRL User Research Administration  Manager, Menlo Park, CA
Cathy has managed  SSRL User Research Administration since November 2000, taking on the additional responsibilities for establishing and managing a joint SSRL/LCLS User Office from 2007-2015 (LCLS began operations with the first user assisted commissioning experiments in 2009). Before joining SLAC, Cathy managed administrative operations and corporate communications in the biotechnology industry (1994-2000). Prior to moving to California to help start a biotech company, she was a management analyst for the National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health in Maryland. Cathy graduated from the University of Maryland majoring in Health Science and Policy.

Ailiena Maggiolo, California Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Ailiena Maggiolo is a graduate student in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. She has been a user on the Macromolecular Crystallography and XAS beamlines at SSRL since her first visit as an undergraduate in 2015. She has also been a user at APS, CHESS, and ALS. She is currently studying nitrogenase proteins in the lab of Prof. Douglas Rees, where she aims to combine XAS and MMX to understand complex metal clusters and their dynamics. As a member of the bioinorganic community, she has been particularly thankful for the diversity of methods that SSRL has made possible. Her research has depended on the tremendous achievements and collaborative nature of the beamline scientists and staff.

Blaine Mooers, University of Oklahoma Health Science Center, Oklahoma City, OK
Blaine Mooers is an Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC). In addition to faculty, he serves as the director of the Laboratory of Biomolecular Structure and Function, which is also a core facility for the Oklahoma COBRE in Structural Biology. Blaine began macromolecular crystallography as a graduate student by working on problems in DNA structure with Dr. Shing Ho at Oregon State University. He worked on problems in protein structure as a post-doc with Dr. Brian Matthews at the University of Oregon. While a post-doc, he used synchrotron radiation to collect atomic resolution data from crystals of proteins, thanks to expert guidance in data collection from SSRL staff. He determined the structures of several proteins and RNAs by direct methods with data collected at SSRL. Blaine has been a proposal spokesperson continuously since 2000, first in on OUHSC structural studies of RNAs and proteins from the unique RNA editing system in the mitochondrion of trypanosomes. He also collaborates with several OUHSC labs on structural studies of proteins related to influenza and cancer biology. He has been involved in SAXS studies since 2011 and is an active user of BL 4-2. Blaine believes that crystallography will continue to play a vital role in integrative structural biology. He served as chair of the SSRL User Executive Committee (UEC) during the existential budget crisis of 2017. He seeks re-election to the UEC to represent the concerns and needs of the users of macromolecular crystallography. http://structuralbiology.ou.edu/

Liane Moreau, Washington State University, Pullman, WA
Liane Moreau has been an SSRL user on XAS and RXES beamlines since 2017. She is currently a faculty member in the department of chemistry at Washington State University, where she leads a research group towards exploring nanoscale properties of f-element materials and the structure of their surfaces and interfaces through pairing new synthetic developments with in-depth X-ray characterization. Liane completed her PhD in Materials Science and Engineering under the direction of Michael Bedzyk and Chad Mirkin at Northwestern University. Subsequently, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow under Corwin Booth at Lawrence Berkeley Lab in the heavy element chemistry group. Historically, Liane's work has relied upon synchrotron XAS and SAXS studies, specifically aiming to map the growth and transformation processes involved in the synthesis of nanoparticles, spanning the periodic table from first row transition metals to actinides. She has experience developing containment strategies for safely measuring radioactive samples and analysis strategies for systems with complex backgrounds. Liane had her first taste of synchrotron XAS work in 2009 as an undergraduate at Cornell University studying nanoscale oxidation processes and hasn't stopped since. She has experience working at CHESS, APS and ALS in addition to SSRL and looks forward to contributing to the continued growth and development of the synchrotron community for years to come.

Rebecca Page, University of Connecticut, Farmington CT
Rebecca Page was the Donna B. Cosulich Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Arizona. She also currently serves the CBC Associate Department Head for Research and Faculty Affairs, interim. Rebecca began macromolecular crystallography as a graduate student studying conformational change in actin with Dr. C.E. Schutt at Princeton University. She then studied neuronal metabolic proteins as a post-doc with Dr. Ray Stevens. During her last year at Scripps, she also served as the crystallomics core director for the Joint Center for Structural Genomics (JCSG) yeast proteome project with Drs. Ray Stevens and Ian Wilson. During this time, she worked very closely with the JCSG group at SSRL for the development and optimization of crystal screening and data collection at SSRL. In 2004, she joined the faculty at Brown University, being an active user of multiple X-ray crystallography and SAXS beamlines during her tenure there (2004-2016). In some years, she served as an instructor for RapiData at NSLS. Her commitment to synchrotron facilities includes serving on multiple proposal panels (from 2014-2016, she served as a proposal reviewer for ALS and in 2016-2018, she served as served on the proposal review panel for the macromolecular crystallography and SAXS beamlines at NSLS-II) and also as an external reviewer. Throughout her career, she has collected data at NSLS, NSLS-II, APS, ALS, Diamond and SSRL for projects focused on signaling and its role in disease. As a long-time user of the SSRL beamlines, she is deeply interested in the long-term success of both the SSRL facility and especially its users. Thus, she is seeking election to the UEC to represent the needs of the users of macromolecular crystallography at SSRL.

Andrew Riscoe, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Andrew Riscoe is a PhD candidate in Matteo Cargnello's group in the Chemical Engineering Department at Stanford University. His research interests include XAS characterization of microporous polymer encapsulated metal catalysts for several small molecule transformations, including selective oxidation of methane to methanol.

Angelia Seyfferth, University of Delaware, Newark, DE
Angelia Seyfferth is Associate Professor of Biogeochemistry and Plant-Soil Interactions at the University of Delaware where she works to understand the soil biogeochemical processes that dictate contaminant and nutrient cycling and uptake by plants. Her group is particularly interested in how small-scale soil-chemical processes influence contaminant (e.g., As, Cd, Pb) and nutrient (e.g., Si, P, Fe, S) release or attenuation that have large-scale impacts on human and environmental health. They use advanced analytical techniques such as synchrotron X-ray absorption spectroscopy and imaging to unravel the species distributions of contaminants and nutrients in the rhizosphere and in plant tissues, and mechanisms of uptake by plant roots. Ultimately, they conduct basic research that can be applied to benefit society on a local-to-global scale. https://canr.udel.edu/faculty/seyfferth-angelia/

Edward Snell, Hauptman Woodward Institute, Buffalo, NY
Edward Snell is President and CEO of the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, Buffalo New York, an independent not-for profit research institute. He is also a professor in the Department of Materials Design and Innovation at SUNY Buffalo and adjunct faculty at the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. His research is supported by the NSF, NIH, and NASA and focuses on dynamic systems with an interest in metalloproteins. He has been an active and continuous user of SSRL since 1996 and a user at ESRF and SRS before that. His background is in crystallography with a gradual shift to complementary techniques including Small Angle X-ray Scattering using SSRL BL 4-2.  His BioSAXS work, in close collaboration with SSRL staff, has led to an IUCr Monograph on Biological Solution Scattering published by Oxford University Press. He is also the PI of NSF funded BioXFEL Science and Technology Center which explores ultrafast dynamics and in it's current renewal focuses on the complete biological dynamics of systems. Edward (Eddie) knows SSRL and has been a strong advocate for many years. He wants to see SSRL do well in the future and and to continue to support it's users most effectively.

Timothy Stemmler, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI
Tim Stemmler is a Full Professor and Associate Chair for the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Wayne State University (WSU). In addition, Tim is an Associate Dean of the WSU Graduate School where he serves as the Director of the Postdoctoral Scholar Office. Tim been using XAS in his research since 1990, while receiving his training under Jim Penner-Hahn at the University of Michigan. After serving as an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the University of Utah, Tim started his career as a new faculty member at WSU in 2000. He has been continuously funded by the NIH and American Heart Association since 2001, and has published over 85 journal articles/reviews/book chapters predominately using XAS in his research. He has presented his work at over 77 conferences/Universities, both nationally and internationally in the past 17 years. He has had 10 PhD students, 5 MS students, and mentored 7 postdoctoral scholars, who have used XAS in their research. He has served on 27 NIH study sections since 2008, and is an active reviewer for the NSF and several International funding agencies. Tim did a sabbatical at SSRL in 2013 with Dr. Keith Hodgson and Dr. Britt Hedman and remains an active user and supporter of SSRL.

Kelly Lynn Summers, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Kelly Summers is a PhD candidate in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Saskatchewan. She holds an MSc and a BSc (Honors) in Biology from the University of Western Ontario and currently holds an Alexander Graham Bell Canadian Graduate Scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to support her PhD research. She is a fellow in the Training in Health Research Using Synchrotron Techniques (THRUST) program and is part of the Molecular and Environmental Sciences Group at the University of Saskatchewan, led by Canada Research Chairs, Profs. Graham George and Ingrid Pickering. Kelly has been involved in the university community through participation in departmental committees, including the Chemistry Course Council. She has also engaged in several conference organization activities including the semi-annual Graduate Student Symposium and the annual THRUST Retreat. Throughout her graduate research Kelly has had the opportunity to operate numerous beamlines at several synchrotron facilities, including the Advanced Photon Source, the Australian Synchrotron, and the Canadian Light Source, in addition to frequent runs at SSRL. Kelly received an NSERC Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement to support her travel to the Australian Synchrotron and her studies there. She has experience in both x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and x-ray fluorescence Imaging techniques and uses both in her research, as well as for collaborative projects. In fact, SSRL’s biological XAS Beam Line 7-3 has been key to her research on the role of metals, particularly copper(II), in the Alzheimer’s brain and how these metals may be manipulated using metal-binding drugs.

Linda Vogt, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Linda Vogt is a graduate student in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Saskatchewan. She has been a synchrotron user since 2012, and has operated various beamlines at the CLS, APS, and SSRL. She worked at the CLS as a casual floor coordinator from 2015 - 2019 and as part of the CLS outreach team from 2017 - 2020.

Beth Wurzburg, LBNL, Joint Genome Institute, Berkeley, CA
Beth was a Research Associate at the LBNL Joint Genome Institute. Previously, Beth was a Research Associate in the laboratory of Prof. Ted Jardetzky. She trained as a protein biochemist (Don Wiley's laboratory) and as a crystallographer (Ted Jardetzky's laboratory), and she has been collecting data at synchrotrons since 1995. Her research interests include biophysical studies of proteins of the immune system and of human pathogens.

Limei Zhang, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE
Dr. Limei Zhang, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has been an SSRL user on XAS and Macromolecular Crystallography beamlines since 2004. Limei received her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Saskatchewan working with Prof. Graham N George (2004-2009), followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology with Prof. Douglas C. Rees (2009-2014). She is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry and the Redox Biology Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The Zhang group's research focuses on the structural and mechanistic investigation of metalloproteins in redox reactions and stress response, using a combination of synchrotron light-based techniques (X-ray crystallography, XAFS and X-ray fluorescence imaging) and biochemical approaches. Limei has co-authored 26 peer-reviewed publications, among which over 20 publications contain the research conducted at SSRL. She has recently received an NSF CAREER Award and NIH MIRA Award. Limei is enthusiastic about advancing techniques at SSRL and LCLS by combining the strengths of X-ray crystallography and XAS. She is looking forward to contributing to the synchrotron community at SSRL.

Monica Barney, Chevron Energy Technology Co, Richmond, CA 94802
Monica is an Advanced Materials Research Scientist in the Materials and Corrosion R&D Group at the Chevron Energy Technology Company. With a unique background in chemistry and materials science, she develops novel analytical methods to improve corrosion rate prediction of materials exposed oil-based solutions at high temperature. Throughout her career, she has specialized in advanced characterization, often employing synchrotron x-ray methods to solve tough, ongoing engineering problems. First using the microdiffraction beamline at the ALS for her Ph.D. work at the University of California, Berkeley, she has continued to discover new approaches using synchrotron x-rays, with a patent recently granted for a spectroscopy technique developed at SSRL to characterize sulfur species in crude oil.

David Bushnell, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
Dave Bushnell is a Sr. Research Associate in the Department of Structural Biology at Stanford University.  His research focuses on using structural methods such as electron microscopy and protein crystallography to understand and control the process of gene expression.   Dave received his BS degree from Cornell University and went on to complete a PhD in Biophysics from Stanford University.   While working in the lab of Prof. Roger Kornberg, Dave was part of the team that solved the atomic structure of the 10 subunit yeast RNA Polymerase II which contributed to Prof. Kornberg being awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  Dave has continued his structural studies of RNA polymerase II mechanism including solving the structure of RNA Polymerase II with the inhibitor alpha-amanitin.  Recently he has been involved with Cocrystal Pharma Inc., a small start up that uses structure guided drug discovery techniques to develop novel anti-viral therapies.  Dave’s first beamtime at SSRL was May 5, 1994 and he has been an active user ever since.  In addition to experience at SSRL he has performed experiments at LCLS, ALS, APS, CHESS and NSLS.

Michael Capano, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN  47097
Michael Capano is Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. Michael received his PhD from MIT. His research interests are microelectronics and nanotechnology.

Bor-Rong (Hypo) Chen, SLAC/Stanford University, Stanford, CA  94305
Bor-Rong (Hypo) joined Mike Toney’s Group at SLAC in May, 2017 as a postdoctoral researcher. She works on tracking the formation process of metal oxides during solution-based synthesis by using in-situ X-ray wide angle scattering and X-ray absorption spectroscopy at SSRL. Bor-Rong hopes to identify and understand the progression of intermediate/metastable materials that can be accessed along synthesis pathways. From 2011 - 2017, Bor-Rong was a frequent user at the APS for her Ph.D. projects at Northwestern University, where she studied the properties of Pd nanoparticle catalysts supported on SrTiO₃ surfaces. Bor-Rong is highly interested in serving as a UEC representative for Materials/Chemistry field. At Northwestern University, she was the president of Materials Research Society (MRS) Student Chapter, and was involved in organizing regular career workshops and hosting alumni panel discussions from 2013 - 2016.

Amy Cordones-Hahn, PULSE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory/Stanford University, Stanford, CA  94305
Amy Cordones-Hahn is an Associate Staff Scientist in the PULSE Institute at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Her research interests revolve around understanding how photoexcitation of electronic excited states drives chemical reactions of functional transition metal complexes, such as molecular photocatalysts. Amy uses time-resolved x-ray spectroscopy to resolve photochemical reactions in real-time and is interested in helping to grow these capabilities and build a larger ultrafast science user community at SSRL.

Lisa Dunn, SSRL User Research Administration, Menlo Park, CA 94025
Lisa has worked at SSRL since 1986, and has been part of the User Research Administration team since 2000. Lisa manages the administration proposal review and scheduling for macromolecular crystallography and biological small angle scattering beam lines. Lisa earned her Bachelor of Science degree from San Jose State University.

James P. Evans, Utah State University,Logan, UT  84322-4505
James Evans is Professor of Geosciences at Utah State University. He received his Ph.D. and MS in Geology from Texas A&M University. His research interests include rock deformation from the micro scale to the map scale. Quantitative analysis of fluid-rock interactions as applied to earthquake processes, energy resources, and CO₂ sequestration. 

Natalie Geise, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
Natalie Geise is a PhD student in Chemistry at Stanford University and works in Mike Toney's group at SSRL. Prior to her graduate studies, Natalie worked in Terry Gullion's solid state NMR group looking at peptide arrangement on nanoparticle surfaces while an undergraduate at West Virginia University. Natalie's current research focuses on high-capacity Li-metal anodes for Li-ion batteries. Through synchrotron-based x-ray techniques at SSRL, ALS and APS and electrochemical measurements, she works on understanding the formation of the solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) and its relation to Li metal plating.

Graham George, University of Saskatchevan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Graham George was educated at King's College London (B.Sc., 1979) and the University of Sussex (D. Phil., 1983). After postdoctoral fellowships at Sussex and Exxon Research & Engineering Co. in New Jersey USA, he continued at Exxon as a Principal Investigator. Graham was Exxon Participating Research Team spokesperson for both NSLS X10-C and SSRL 6-2 between 1988 and 1992. In 1992 Graham married fellow synchrotron radiation researcher Ingrid Pickering and moved to the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory where he held the position of Physicist until 2003. In 2003 he became full professor and Canada Research Chair in X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy at the University of Saskatchewan. Graham's first experiments using synchrotron radiation were on the EMBL XAS beamline at DESY Hamburg in April 1982, and his first experiments at SSRL were on Beam Line 7-3 in December 1983. Since that first run at SSRL Graham has taken part in over 185 different beamtime experiments at SSRL, and has published more than 270 papers using data collected at SSRL. His research bridges the chemical, the environmental and the life sciences and includes a career-long interest in metalloenzymes, toxic metals and fuel science.

Cathy Knotts, >SSRL User Research Administration  Manager, Menlo Park, CA 94025
Cathy has managed  SSRL User Research Administration since November 2000, taking on the additional responsibilities for establishing and managing a joint SSRL/LCLS User Office from 2007-2015 (LCLS began operations with the first user assisted commissioning experiments in 2009). Before joining SLAC, Cathy managed administrative operations and corporate communications in the biotechnology industry (1994-2000). Prior to moving to California to help start a biotech company, she was a management analyst for the National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health in Maryland. Cathy graduated from the University of Maryland majoring in Health Science and Policy.

Henry (Pete) La Pierre, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332
Henry joined the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Nuclear Engineering Program at the Georgia Institute of Technology as an assistant professor in 2016. His graduate work, with Professors John Arnold, Robert Bergman, and Dean Toste at UC-Berkeley, focused on the development of a Z-selective alkyne semihydrogenation catalyst. Following graduation, he studied ligand control of reactive low- and high-valent uranium complexes as a postdoctoral scholar with Prof. Karsten Meyer at FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg. In 2014, he joined the Los Alamos National Laboratory XAS program as a Director's Postdoctoral Fellow and employed ligand K-edge XAS to study covalency in transuranic complexes. He has been a user of SSRL since 2015 and has also performed synchrotron experiments at ANKA. His current research uses synchrotron spectroscopy to understand how f-element valence and orbital energy govern magnetic superexchange and multi-configurational behavior in molecular complexes and extended solids.

Nathan Lavey, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019
Nathan is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in Dr. Adam Duerfeldt’s laboratory at the University of Oklahoma. After working at a biotechnology startup in Boston for two years, he decided to return to academia. Nathan combines structural biology methods such as SAXS and x-ray crystallography with biochemistry techniques, to elucidate the role of ClpP in the virulence of a bacterial organism, as well as structurally guide the design of small molecules that target ClpP. Nathan routinely utilizes the SSRL for macromolecular x-ray crystallography, in order to reconcile biochemical observations with structural evidence, and utilize that information to guide the design of antimicrobial small molecules that activate ClpP. He has completed the CCP4 training workshop at the Advanced Photon Source, and has been a frequent remote-SSRL user since 2015.

Blaine Mooers, University of Oklahoma Health Science Center, Oklahoma City, OK 73190
Blaine Mooers is an Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC). In addition to faculty, he serves as the director of the Laboratory of Biomolecular Structure and Function, which is also a core facility for the Oklahoma COBRE in Structural Biology. Blaine began macromolecular crystallography as a graduate student by working on problems in DNA structure with Dr. Shing Ho at Oregon State University. He worked on problems in protein structure as a post-doc with Dr. Brian Matthews at the University of Oregon. While a post-doc, he used synchrotron radiation to collect atomic resolution data from crystals of proteins, thanks to expert guidance in data collection from SSRL staff. He determined the structures of several proteins and RNAs by direct methods with data collected at SSRL. Blaine has been a proposal spokesperson continuously since 2000, first in on OUHSC structural studies of RNAs and proteins from the unique RNA editing system in the mitochondrion of trypanosomes. He also collaborates with several OUHSC labs on structural studies of proteins related to influenza and cancer biology. He has been involved in SAXS studies since 2011 and is an active user of BL 4-2. Blaine believes that crystallography will continue to play a vital role in integrative structural biology. He served as chair of the SSRL User Executive Committee (UEC) during the existential budget crisis of 2017. He seeks re-election to the UEC to represent the concerns and needs of the users of macromolecular crystallography. http://structuralbiology.ou.edu/

Rebecca Page, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ  85721
Rebecca Page is the Donna B. Cosulich Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Arizona. She also currently serves the CBC Associate Department Head for Research and Faculty Affairs, interim. Rebecca began macromolecular crystallography as a graduate student studying conformational change in actin with Dr. C.E. Schutt at Princeton University. She then studied neuronal metabolic proteins as a post-doc with Dr. Ray Stevens. During her last year at Scripps, she also served as the crystallomics core director for the Joint Center for Structural Genomics (JCSG) yeast proteome project with Drs. Ray Stevens and Ian Wilson. During this time, she worked very closely with the JCSG group at SSRL for the development and optimization of crystal screening and data collection at SSRL. In 2004, she joined the faculty at Brown University, being an active user of multiple X-ray crystallography and SAXS beamlines during her tenure there (2004-2016). In some years, she served as an instructor for RapiData at NSLS. Her commitment to synchrotron facilities includes serving on multiple proposal panels (from 2014-2016, she served as a proposal reviewer for ALS and in 2016-2018, she served as served on the proposal review panel for the macromolecular crystallography and SAXS beamlines at NSLS-II) and also as an external reviewer. Throughout her career, she has collected data at NSLS, NSLS-II, APS, ALS, Diamond and SSRL for projects focused on signaling and its role in disease. As a long-time user of the SSRL beamlines, she is deeply interested in the long-term success of both the SSRL facility and especially its users. Thus, she is seeking election to the UEC to represent the needs of the users of macromolecular crystallography at SSRL.

Andrew Riscoe, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
Andrew Riscoe is a PhD candidate in Matteo Cargnello's group in the Chemical Engineering Department at Stanford University. His research interests include XAS characterization of microporous polymer encapsulated metal catalysts for several small molecule transformations, including selective oxidation of methane to methanol.

Angelia Seyfferth, University of Delaware, Newark, DE  19716
Angelia Seyfferth is Associate Professor of Biogeochemistry and Plant-Soil Interactions at the University of Delaware where she works to understand the soil biogeochemical processes that dictate contaminant and nutrient cycling and uptake by plants. Her group is particularly interested in how small-scale soil-chemical processes influence contaminant (e.g., As, Cd, Pb) and nutrient (e.g., Si, P, Fe, S) release or attenuation that have large-scale impacts on human and environmental health. They use advanced analytical techniques such as synchrotron X-ray absorption spectroscopy and imaging to unravel the species distributions of contaminants and nutrients in the rhizosphere and in plant tissues, and mechanisms of uptake by plant roots. Ultimately, they conduct basic research that can be applied to benefit society on a local-to-global scale. https://canr.udel.edu/faculty/seyfferth-angelia/

Edward Snell, Hauptman Woodward Institute, Buffalo, NY  14203
Edward Snell is President and CEO of the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, Buffalo New York, an independent not-for profit research institute. He is also a professor in the Department of Materials Design and Innovation at SUNY Buffalo and adjunct faculty at the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. His research is supported by the NSF, NIH, and NASA and focuses on dynamic systems with an interest in metalloproteins. He has been an active and continuous user of SSRL since 1996 and a user at ESRF and SRS before that. His background is in crystallography with a gradual shift to complementary techniques including Small Angle X-ray Scattering using SSRL BL 4-2.  His BioSAXS work, in close collaboration with SSRL staff, has led to an IUCr Monograph on Biological Solution Scattering published by Oxford University Press. He is also the PI of NSF funded BioXFEL Science and Technology Center which explores ultrafast dynamics and in it's current renewal focuses on the complete biological dynamics of systems. Edward (Eddie) knows SSRL and has been a strong advocate for many years. He wants to see SSRL do well in the future and and to continue to support it's users most effectively.

Timothy Stemmler, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48201
Tim Stemmler is a Full Professor and Associate Chair for the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Wayne State University (WSU). In addition, Tim is an Associate Dean of the WSU Graduate School where he serves as the Director of the Postdoctoral Scholar Office. Tim been using XAS in his research since 1990, while receiving his training under Jim Penner-Hahn at the University of Michigan. After serving as an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the University of Utah, Tim started his career as a new faculty member at WSU in 2000. He has been continuously funded by the NIH and American Heart Association since 2001, and has published over 85 journal articles/reviews/book chapters predominately using XAS in his research. He has presented his work at over 77 conferences/Universities, both nationally and internationally in the past 17 years. He has had 10 PhD students, 5 MS students, and mentored 7 postdoctoral scholars, who have used XAS in their research. He has served on 27 NIH study sections since 2008, and is an active reviewer for the NSF and several International funding agencies. Tim did a sabbatical at SSRL in 2013 with Dr. Keith Hodgson and Dr. Britt Hedman and remains an active user and supporter of SSRL.

Kelly Lynn Summers, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Kelly Summers is a PhD candidate in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Saskatchewan. She holds an MSc and a BSc (Honors) in Biology from the University of Western Ontario and currently holds an Alexander Graham Bell Canadian Graduate Scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to support her PhD research. She is a fellow in the Training in Health Research Using Synchrotron Techniques (THRUST) program and is part of the Molecular and Environmental Sciences Group at the University of Saskatchewan, led by Canada Research Chairs, Profs. Graham George and Ingrid Pickering. Kelly has been involved in the university community through participation in departmental committees, including the Chemistry Course Council. She has also engaged in several conference organization activities including the semi-annual Graduate Student Symposium and the annual THRUST Retreat. Throughout her graduate research Kelly has had the opportunity to operate numerous beamlines at several synchrotron facilities, including the Advanced Photon Source, the Australian Synchrotron, and the Canadian Light Source, in addition to frequent runs at SSRL. Kelly received an NSERC Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement to support her travel to the Australian Synchrotron and her studies there. She has experience in both x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and x-ray fluorescence Imaging techniques and uses both in her research, as well as for collaborative projects. In fact, SSRL’s biological XAS Beam Line 7-3 has been key to her research on the role of metals, particularly copper(II), in the Alzheimer’s brain and how these metals may be manipulated using metal-binding drugs.

Beth Wurzburg, LBNL, Joint Genome Institute, Berkeley, CA 94598
Beth was a Research Associate at the LBNL Joint Genome Institute. Previously, Beth was a Research Associate in the laboratory of Prof. Ted Jardetzky. She trained as a protein biochemist (Don Wiley's laboratory) and as a crystallographer (Ted Jardetzky's laboratory), and she has been collecting data at synchrotrons since 1995. Her research interests include biophysical studies of proteins of the immune system and of human pathogens.

Monica Barney, Chevron Energy Technology Co, Richmond, CA 94802
Monica is an Advanced Materials Research Scientist in the Materials and Corrosion R&D Group at the Chevron Energy Technology Company. With a unique background in chemistry and materials science, she develops novel analytical methods to improve corrosion rate prediction of materials exposed oil-based solutions at high temperature. Throughout her career, she has specialized in advanced characterization, often employing synchrotron x-ray methods to solve tough, ongoing engineering problems. First using the microdiffraction beamline at the ALS for her Ph.D. work at the University of California, Berkeley, she has continued to discover new approaches using synchrotron x-rays, with a patent recently granted for a spectroscopy technique developed at SSRL to characterize sulfur species in crude oil.

David Bushnell, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
Dave Bushnell is a Sr. Research Associate in the Department of Structural Biology at Stanford University.  His research focuses on using structural methods such as electron microscopy and protein crystallography to understand and control the process of gene expression.   Dave received his BS degree from Cornell University and went on to complete a PhD in Biophysics from Stanford University.   While working in the lab of Prof. Roger Kornberg, Dave was part of the team that solved the atomic structure of the 10 subunit yeast RNA Polymerase II which contributed to Prof. Kornberg being awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  Dave has continued his structural studies of RNA polymerase II mechanism including solving the structure of RNA Polymerase II with the inhibitor alpha-amanitin.  Recently he has been involved with Cocrystal Pharma Inc., a small start up that uses structure guided drug discovery techniques to develop novel anti-viral therapies.  Dave’s first beamtime at SSRL was May 5, 1994 and he has been an active user ever since.  In addition to experience at SSRL he has performed experiments at LCLS, ALS, APS, CHESS and NSLS.  

Natalie Geise, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
Natalie Geise is a PhD student in Chemistry at Stanford University and works in Mike Toney's group at SSRL. Prior to her graduate studies, Natalie worked in Terry Gullion's solid state NMR group looking at peptide arrangement on nanoparticle surfaces while an undergraduate at West Virginia University. Natalie's current research focuses on high-capacity Li-metal anodes for Li-ion batteries. Through synchrotron-based x-ray techniques at SSRL, ALS and APS and electrochemical measurements, she works on understanding the formation of the solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) and its relation to Li metal plating.

Graham George,,University of Saskatchevan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Graham George was educated at King's College London (B.Sc., 1979) and the University of Sussex (D. Phil., 1983). After postdoctoral fellowships at Sussex and Exxon Research & Engineering Co. in New Jersey USA, he continued at Exxon as a Principal Investigator. Graham was Exxon Participating Research Team spokesperson for both NSLS X10-C and SSRL 6-2 between 1988 and 1992. In 1992 Graham married fellow synchrotron radiation researcher Ingrid Pickering and moved to the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory where he held the position of Physicist until 2003. In 2003 he became full professor and Canada Research Chair in X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy at the University of Saskatchewan. Graham's first experiments using synchrotron radiation were on the EMBL XAS beamline at DESY Hamburg in April 1982, and his first experiments at SSRL were on Beam Line 7-3 in December 1983. Since that first run at SSRL Graham has taken part in over 185 different beamtime experiments at SSRL, and has published more than 270 papers using data collected at SSRL. His research bridges the chemical, the environmental and the life sciences and includes a career-long interest in metalloenzymes, toxic metals and fuel science.

Lisa Dunn, SSRL User Research Administration, Menlo Park, CA 94025  (SSRL Liason, Ex Officio)
Lisa has worked at SSRL since 1986, and has been part of the User Research Administration team since 2000. Lisa manages the administration proposal review and scheduling for macromolecular crystallography and biological small angle scattering beam lines. Lisa earned her Bachelor of Science degree from San Jose State University.

Marco Keiluweit, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003
Marco, Assistant Professor, Soil and Microbial Biogeochemistry School or Earth and Sustainability University of Massachusetts—Amherst, studies how climate change impacts nutrient cycling in soils and sediments. To resolve the sub-micron scale microbe-mineral-organic matter interactions that drive the cycling of critical elements such as C, N, Ca, Fe, Mn, and Al in subsurface environments, he has employed soft and hard x-ray spectro- and microscopy approaches. To date, this research has involved synchrotron experiments at SSRL, Advanced Light Source, and Canadian Light Source. Marco received his PhD in Soil Biogeochemistry from Oregon State University. Prior to assuming his position at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, he was a Lawrence Scholar in the Chemical Sciences Division at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Earth System Science at Stanford University.

Cathy Knotts, SSRL User Research Administration  Manager, Menlo Park, CA 94025  (SSRL Liaison, Ex Officio)
Cathy has managed  SSRL User Research Administration since November 2000, taking on the additional responsibilities for establishing and managing a joint SSRL/LCLS User Office from 2007-2015 (LCLS began operations with the first user assisted commissioning experiments in 2009). Before joining SLAC, Cathy managed administrative operations and corporate communications in the biotechnology industry (1994-2000). Prior to moving to California to help start a biotech company, she was a management analyst for the National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health in Maryland. Cathy graduated from the University of Maryland majoring in Health Science and Policy.

Henry (Pete) La Pierre, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332
Henry joined the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Nuclear Engineering Program at the Georgia Institute of Technology as an assistant professor in 2016. His graduate work, with Professors John Arnold, Robert Bergman, and Dean Toste at UC-Berkeley, focused on the development of a Z-selective alkyne semihydrogenation catalyst. Following graduation, he studied ligand control of reactive low- and high-valent uranium complexes as a postdoctoral scholar with Prof. Karsten Meyer at FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg. In 2014, he joined the Los Alamos National Laboratory XAS program as a Director's Postdoctoral Fellow and employed ligand K-edge XAS to study covalency in transuranic complexes. He has been a user of SSRL since 2015 and has also performed synchrotron experiments at ANKA. His current research uses synchrotron spectroscopy to understand how f-element valence and orbital energy govern magnetic superexchange and multi-configurational behavior in molecular complexes and extended solids.

Nathan Lavey, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019
Nathan is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in Dr. Adam Duerfeldt’s laboratory at the University of Oklahoma. After working at a biotechnology startup in Boston for two years, he decided to return to academia. Nathan combines structural biology methods such as SAXS and x-ray crystallography with biochemistry techniques, to elucidate the role of ClpP in the virulence of a bacterial organism, as well as structurally guide the design of small molecules that target ClpP. Nathan routinely utilizes the SSRL for macromolecular x-ray crystallography, in order to reconcile biochemical observations with structural evidence, and utilize that information to guide the design of antimicrobial small molecules that activate ClpP. He has completed the CCP4 training workshop at the Advanced Photon Source, and has been a frequent remote-SSRL user since 2015.

Blaine Mooers, University of Oklahoma Health Science Center, Oklahoma City, OK 73190
Blaine entered crystallography as a graduate student by working on problems in DNA structure with Dr. Shing Ho at Oregon State University. He switched to problems in protein structure as a post-doc with Dr. Brian Matthews at the University of Oregon. While a post-doc, he started using synchrotron radiation to collect atomic resolution data from proteins and made his first trip to SSRL in 1999 where he has been returning almost every year. He started a lab at the University of Oklahoma Health Science Center that is focused on structural studies of RNAs from the RNA editing system in the mitochondrion of trypanosomes. His lab has been involved in SAXS studies for the past three years and started to make regular trips to BL4-2 in addition to the protein crystallography beam lines. http://structuralbiology.ou.edu/

Andrew Riscoe, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
Andrew Riscoe is a PhD candidate in Matteo Cargnello's group in the Chemical Engineering Department at Stanford University. His research interests include XAS characterization of microporous polymer encapsulated metal catalysts for several small molecule transformations, including selective oxidation of methane to methanol.

Timothy Stemmler, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48201
Tim Stemmler is a Full Professor and Associate Chair for the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Wayne State University (WSU). In addition, Tim is an Associate Dean of the WSU Graduate School where he serves as the Director of the Postdoctoral Scholar Office. Tim been using XAS in his research since 1990, while receiving his training under Jim Penner-Hahn at the University of Michigan. After serving as an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the University of Utah, Tim started his career as a new faculty member at WSU in 2000. He has been continuously funded by the NIH and American Heart Association since 2001, and has published over 85 journal articles/reviews/book chapters predominately using XAS in his research. He has presented his work at over 77 conferences/Universities, both nationally and internationally in the past 17 years. He has had 10 PhD students, 5 MS students, and mentored 7 postdoctoral scholars, who have used XAS in their research. He has served on 27 NIH study sections since 2008, and is an active reviewer for the NSF and several International funding agencies. Tim did a sabbatical at SSRL in 2013 with Dr. Keith Hodgson and Dr. Britt Hedman and remains an active user and supporter of SSRL.

Kelly Lynn Summers, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Kelly Summers is a PhD candidate in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Saskatchewan. She holds an MSc and a BSc (Honors) in Biology from the University of Western Ontario and currently holds an Alexander Graham Bell Canadian Graduate Scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to support her PhD research. She is a fellow in the Training in Health Research Using Synchrotron Techniques (THRUST) program and is part of the Molecular and Environmental Sciences Group at the University of Saskatchewan, led by Canada Research Chairs, Profs. Graham George and Ingrid Pickering. Kelly has been involved in the university community through participation in departmental committees, including the Chemistry Course Council. She has also engaged in several conference organization activities including the semi-annual Graduate Student Symposium and the annual THRUST Retreat. Throughout her graduate research Kelly has had the opportunity to operate numerous beamlines at several synchrotron facilities, including the Advanced Photon Source, the Australian Synchrotron, and the Canadian Light Source, in addition to frequent runs at SSRL. Kelly received an NSERC Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement to support her travel to the Australian Synchrotron and her studies there. She has experience in both x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and x-ray fluorescence Imaging techniques and uses both in her research, as well as for collaborative projects. In fact, SSRL’s biological XAS Beam Line 7-3 has been key to her research on the role of metals, particularly copper(II), in the Alzheimer’s brain and how these metals may be manipulated using metal-binding drugs.

Edward Snell, Hauptman Woodward Institute, Buffalo, NY  14203
Eddie's background is x-ray crystallography, bio spectroscopy and small angle x-ray scattering (SAXS), which are complementary techniques that are invaluable to furthering the structural and mechanistic information on the biological world.

Beth Wurzburg, LBNL, Joint Genome Institute, Berkeley, CA 94598 (Ex Officio NUFO)
Beth was a Research Associate at the LBNL Joint Genome Institute. Previously, Beth was a Research Associate in the laboratory of Prof. Ted Jardetzky. She trained as a protein biochemist (Don Wiley's laboratory) and as a crystallographer (Ted Jardetzky's laboratory), and she has been collecting data at synchrotrons since 1995. Her research interests include biophysical studies of proteins of the immune system and of human pathogens.

Monica Barney, Chevron Energy Technology Co, Richmond, CA 94802
Monica is an Advanced Materials Research Scientist in the Materials and Corrosion R&D Group at the Chevron Energy Technology Company. With a unique background in chemistry and materials science, she develops novel analytical methods to improve corrosion rate prediction of materials exposed oil-based solutions at high temperature. Throughout her career, she has specialized in advanced characterization, often employing synchrotron x-ray methods to solve tough, ongoing engineering problems. First using the microdiffraction beamline at the ALS for her Ph.D. work at the University of California, Berkeley, she has continued to discover new approaches using synchrotron x-rays, with a patent recently granted for a spectroscopy technique developed at SSRL to characterize sulfur species in crude oil.

Christoph Bostedt, ANL, Argonne, IL 60439  (Ex Officio, LCLS UEC)

David Bushnell, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
Dave Bushnell is a Sr. Research Associate in the Department of Structural Biology at Stanford University.  His research focuses on using structural methods such as electron microscopy and protein crystallography to understand and control the process of gene expression.   Dave received his BS degree from Cornell University and went on to complete a PhD in Biophysics from Stanford University.   While working in the lab of Prof. Roger Kornberg, Dave was part of the team that solved the atomic structure of the 10 subunit yeast RNA Polymerase II which contributed to Prof. Kornberg being awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  Dave has continued his structural studies of RNA polymerase II mechanism including solving the structure of RNA Polymerase II with the inhibitor alpha-amanitin.  Recently he has been involved with Cocrystal Pharma Inc., a small start up that uses structure guided drug discovery techniques to develop novel anti-viral therapies.  Dave’s first beamtime at SSRL was May 5, 1994 and he has been an active user ever since.  In addition to experience at SSRL he has performed experiments at LCLS, ALS, APS, CHESS and NSLS.  

Natalie Geise, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
Natalie Geise is a PhD student in Chemistry at Stanford University and works in Mike Toney's group at SSRL. Prior to her graduate studies, Natalie worked in Terry Gullion's solid state NMR group looking at peptide arrangement on nanoparticle surfaces while an undergraduate at West Virginia University. Natalie's current research focuses on high-capacity Li-metal anodes for Li-ion batteries. Through synchrotron-based x-ray techniques at SSRL, ALS and APS and electrochemical measurements, she works on understanding the formation of the solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) and its relation to Li metal plating.

Graham George,,University of Saskatchevan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Graham George was educated at King's College London (B.Sc., 1979) and the University of Sussex (D. Phil., 1983). After postdoctoral fellowships at Sussex and Exxon Research & Engineering Co. in New Jersey USA, he continued at Exxon as a Principal Investigator. Graham was Exxon Participating Research Team spokesperson for both NSLS X10-C and SSRL 6-2 between 1988 and 1992. In 1992 Graham married fellow synchrotron radiation researcher Ingrid Pickering and moved to the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory where he held the position of Physicist until 2003. In 2003 he became full professor and Canada Research Chair in X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy at the University of Saskatchewan. Graham's first experiments using synchrotron radiation were on the EMBL XAS beamline at DESY Hamburg in April 1982, and his first experiments at SSRL were on Beam Line 7-3 in December 1983. Since that first run at SSRL Graham has taken part in over 185 different beamtime experiments at SSRL, and has published more than 270 papers using data collected at SSRL. His research bridges the chemical, the environmental and the life sciences and includes a career-long interest in metalloenzymes, toxic metals and fuel science.

Lisa Dunn, SSRL User Research Administration, Menlo Park, CA 94025  (SSRL Liason, Ex Officio)
Lisa has worked at SSRL since 1986, and has been part of the User Research Administration team since 2000. Lisa manages the administration proposal review and scheduling for macromolecular crystallography and biological small angle scattering beam lines. Lisa earned her Bachelor of Science degree from San Jose State University.

Marco Keiluweit, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003
Marco, Assistant Professor, Soil and Microbial Biogeochemistry School or Earth and Sustainability University of Massachusetts—Amherst, studies how climate change impacts nutrient cycling in soils and sediments. To resolve the sub-micron scale microbe-mineral-organic matter interactions that drive the cycling of critical elements such as C, N, Ca, Fe, Mn, and Al in subsurface environments, he has employed soft and hard x-ray spectro- and microscopy approaches. To date, this research has involved synchrotron experiments at SSRL, Advanced Light Source, and Canadian Light Source. Marco received his PhD in Soil Biogeochemistry from Oregon State University. Prior to assuming his position at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, he was a Lawrence Scholar in the Chemical Sciences Division at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Earth System Science at Stanford University.

Cathy Knotts, SSRL User Research Administration  Manager, Menlo Park, CA 94025  (SSRL Liaison, Ex Officio)
Cathy has managed  SSRL User Research Administration since November 2000, taking on the additional responsibilities for establishing and managing a joint SSRL/LCLS User Office from 2007-2015 (LCLS began operations with the first user assisted commissioning experiments in 2009). Before joining SLAC, Cathy managed administrative operations and corporate communications in the biotechnology industry (1994-2000). Prior to moving to California to help start a biotech company, she was a management analyst for the National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health in Maryland. Cathy graduated from the University of Maryland majoring in Health Science and Policy.

Henry (Pete) La Pierre, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332
Henry joined the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Nuclear Engineering Program at the Georgia Institute of Technology as an assistant professor in 2016. His graduate work, with Professors John Arnold, Robert Bergman, and Dean Toste at UC-Berkeley, focused on the development of a Z-selective alkyne semihydrogenation catalyst. Following graduation, he studied ligand control of reactive low- and high-valent uranium complexes as a postdoctoral scholar with Prof. Karsten Meyer at FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg. In 2014, he joined the Los Alamos National Laboratory XAS program as a Director's Postdoctoral Fellow and employed ligand K-edge XAS to study covalency in transuranic complexes. He has been a user of SSRL since 2015 and has also performed synchrotron experiments at ANKA. His current research uses synchrotron spectroscopy to understand how f-element valence and orbital energy govern magnetic superexchange and multi-configurational behavior in molecular complexes and extended solids.

Nathan Lavey, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019
Nathan is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in Dr. Adam Duerfeldt’s laboratory at the University of Oklahoma. After working at a biotechnology startup in Boston for two years, he decided to return to academia. Nathan combines structural biology methods such as SAXS and x-ray crystallography with biochemistry techniques, to elucidate the role of ClpP in the virulence of a bacterial organism, as well as structurally guide the design of small molecules that target ClpP. Nathan routinely utilizes the SSRL for macromolecular x-ray crystallography, in order to reconcile biochemical observations with structural evidence, and utilize that information to guide the design of antimicrobial small molecules that activate ClpP. He has completed the CCP4 training workshop at the Advanced Photon Source, and has been a frequent remote-SSRL user since 2015.

Feng Lin, Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, VA 24061
Feng is Assistant Professor, Virgnia Tech Department of Chemistry. Feng holds a Bachelor’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Tianjin University, and an MSc degree and a PhD degree in Materials Science from the Colorado School of Mines. Feng joins the department after working for QuantumScape Corporation as a Senior Member of Technical Staff and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab as a postdoc. Prof. Lin’s expertise includes energy materials for batteries, smart windows and catalysis, as well as advanced analytical techniques for the in operando characterization of these technologies at various length scales. His research activities at Virginia Tech will focus primarily on electrochemical energy systems, including rechargeable batteries and single atom electrocatalysts for renewable fuels.

Lisa Mayhew, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309
Lisa graduated from Colgate University in 2000 with a BA in Geology. She began her Master’s research investigating the relationship between the geochemical characteristics and microbial communities present at fumaroles on the Galapagos Islands in 2004 and graduated with a Master’s degree in Geological Sciences from the University of Idaho in 2006. She then moved to Geological Sciences at the University of Colorado – Boulder working with Dr. Alexis Templeton to design laboratory experiments to investigate the production of H₂ gas from water-rock reactions at low temperatures (<150°C). A major component of her PhD thesis work was the implementation of synchrotron radiation based techniques to investigate the partitioning of Fe into the diverse, microscale secondary mineral phases formed during the water-rock reactions. She worked  with Dr. Sam Webb on SSRL BL2-3 to develop a method of multiple energy mapping within the Fe K-edge, coupled with μXANES analyses, to investigate the speciation and distribution of Fe at the microscale. She also has experience collecting bulk XANES and EXAFS spectra from powdered rocks and minerals on SSRL BL 4-1 and 11-2. These spectra have been incorporated into an extensive Fe model compound spectral library. The application of synchrotron techniques has enabled unique insights into the mechanism of H₂ production from low temperature water-rock reactions. She also implemented this method to investigate the potential for microorganisms, present in the reaction system, to affect the reaction pathways and products. Lisa completed her PhD in June 2012 and is a Research Associate in the Templeton Geomicrobiology Laboratory at the University of Colorado – Boulder where she continues to apply synchrotron techniques to new experimental systems and investigate samples from natural geologic systems undergoing similar low temperature reactions. She plans to expand her synchrotron experience to include surface spectroscopic techniques.

Blaine Mooers, University of Oklahoma Health Science Center, Oklahoma City, OK 73190
Blaine entered crystallography as a graduate student by working on problems in DNA structure with Dr. Shing Ho at Oregon State University. He switched to problems in protein structure as a post-doc with Dr. Brian Matthews at the University of Oregon. While a post-doc, he started using synchrotron radiation to collect atomic resolution data from proteins and made his first trip to SSRL in 1999 where he has been returning almost every year. He started a lab at the University of Oklahoma Health Science Center that is focused on structural studies of RNAs from the RNA editing system in the mitochondrion of trypanosomes. His lab has been involved in SAXS studies for the past three years and started to make regular trips to BL4-2 in addition to the protein crystallography beam lines. http://structuralbiology.ou.edu/

Andrew Riscoe, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
Andrew Riscoe is a PhD candidate in Matteo Cargnello's group in the Chemical Engineering Department at Stanford University. His research interests include XAS characterization of microporous polymer encapsulated metal catalysts for several small molecule transformations, including selective oxidation of methane to methanol.

Richard Sandberg, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545  (Ex Officio, LCLS UEC)
Richard is on the nanotechnology and advanced spectroscopy team at Center for Advanced Solar Photophysics at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. and MS degrees from the University of Colorado Boulder, BS from Brigham Young University.

Timothy Stemmler, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48201
Tim Stemmler is a Full Professor and Associate Chair for the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Wayne State University (WSU). In addition, Tim is an Associate Dean of the WSU Graduate School where he serves as the Director of the Postdoctoral Scholar Office. Tim been using XAS in his research since 1990, while receiving his training under Jim Penner-Hahn at the University of Michigan. After serving as an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the University of Utah, Tim started his career as a new faculty member at WSU in 2000. He has been continuously funded by the NIH and American Heart Association since 2001, and has published over 85 journal articles/reviews/book chapters predominately using XAS in his research. He has presented his work at over 77 conferences/Universities, both nationally and internationally in the past 17 years. He has had 10 PhD students, 5 MS students, and mentored 7 postdoctoral scholars, who have used XAS in their research. He has served on 27 NIH study sections since 2008, and is an active reviewer for the NSF and several International funding agencies. Tim did a sabbatical at SSRL in 2013 with Dr. Keith Hodgson and Dr. Britt Hedman and remains an active user and supporter of SSRL.

Kelly Lynn Summers, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Kelly Summers is a PhD candidate in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Saskatchewan. She holds an MSc and a BSc (Honors) in Biology from the University of Western Ontario and currently holds an Alexander Graham Bell Canadian Graduate Scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to support her PhD research. She is a fellow in the Training in Health Research Using Synchrotron Techniques (THRUST) program and is part of the Molecular and Environmental Sciences Group at the University of Saskatchewan, led by Canada Research Chairs, Profs. Graham George and Ingrid Pickering. Kelly has been involved in the university community through participation in departmental committees, including the Chemistry Course Council. She has also engaged in several conference organization activities including the semi-annual Graduate Student Symposium and the annual THRUST Retreat. Throughout her graduate research Kelly has had the opportunity to operate numerous beamlines at several synchrotron facilities, including the Advanced Photon Source, the Australian Synchrotron, and the Canadian Light Source, in addition to frequent runs at SSRL. Kelly received an NSERC Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement to support her travel to the Australian Synchrotron and her studies there. She has experience in both x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and x-ray fluorescence Imaging techniques and uses both in her research, as well as for collaborative projects. In fact, SSRL’s biological XAS Beam Line 7-3 has been key to her research on the role of metals, particularly copper(II), in the Alzheimer’s brain and how these metals may be manipulated using metal-binding drugs.

Edward Snell, Hauptman Woodward Institute, Buffalo, NY  14203
Eddie's background is x-ray crystallography, bio spectroscopy and small angle x-ray scattering (SAXS), which are complementary techniques that are invaluable to furthering the structural and mechanistic information on the biological world.

Mariano Trigo, Stanford University, Stanford, CA  94305
Mariano is a staff scientist at the Stanford PULSE Institute, a Stanford independent laboratory focused  on ultrafast and short wavelength science and technology.

Beth Wurzburg, LBNL, Joint Genome Institute, Berkeley, CA 94598 (Ex Officio NUFO)
Beth was a Research Associate at the LBNL Joint Genome Institute. Previously, Beth was a Research Associate in the laboratory of Prof. Ted Jardetzky. She trained as a protein biochemist (Don Wiley's laboratory) and as a crystallographer (Ted Jardetzky's laboratory), and she has been collecting data at synchrotrons since 1995. Her research interests include biophysical studies of proteins of the immune system and of human pathogens.

David Bushnell, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
Dave Bushnell is a Sr. Research Associate in the Department of Structural Biology at Stanford University.  His research focuses on using structural methods such as electron microscopy and protein crystallography to understand and control the process of gene expression.   Dave received his BS degree from Cornell University and went on to complete a PhD in Biophysics from Stanford University.   While working in the lab of Prof. Roger Kornberg, Dave was part of the team that solved the atomic structure of the 10 subunit yeast RNA Polymerase II which contributed to Prof. Kornberg being awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  Dave has continued his structural studies of RNA polymerase II mechanism including solving the structure of RNA Polymerase II with the inhibitor alpha-amanitin.  Recently he has been involved with Cocrystal Pharma Inc., a small start up that uses structure guided drug discovery techniques to develop novel anti-viral therapies.  Dave’s first beamtime at SSRL was May 5^th, 1994 and he has been an active user ever since.  In addition to experience at SSRL he has performed experiments at LCLS, ALS, APS, CHESS and NSLS.  

Kelly Chacón, Reed College, Portland, OR  97202-8199
Kelly is Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Division of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at Reed College. She studies how metal ions are trafficked in the cell by using a mixture of biochemistry and spectroscopy. Her lab is particularly interested in catching the physical act of metal ion transfer from one metalloprotein to another, as well as characterizing newly discovered metalloproteins. This work heavily relies upon bi-yearly lab trips to a number of synchrotron lightsources. She has been an SSRL user since 2010 and has also conducted research at Argonne and Brookhaven National Labs. Her experience with dilute biological EXAFS began when she was a lab technician, prompting her to devote her subsequent graduate work on selenomethionine active site labeling as a spectroscopic probe of metalloprotein structure-function and metal transfer. She was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow at Oregon Health & Science University working with Professor Ninian J. Blackburn, and is also the 2016 Chair of the Gordon Research Seminar in Bioinorganic Chemistry. She received her B.S. in Chemistry with honors from Portland State University in 2009.

Scott R. Daly, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA  52317 
Scott joined the Department of Chemistry at the University of Iowa in 2014 after spending two years as a faculty member at the George Washington University in Washington, DC. He performed his graduate work in chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with Professor Gregory S. Girolami. His thesis focused on the synthesis and characterization of volatile inorganic compounds for thin film applications. After graduating, he accepted a Seaborg Postdoctoral Fellowship at Los Alamos National Laboratory. There he joined the LANL XAS program and spent two years investigating the role of covalency and electronic structure on actinide extractant selectivity. He has been an SSRL user since 2010 and has participated with NUFO at the 2013 user science exhibition and Congressional office visits in DC. His current research uses synchrotron spectroscopy and in-situ XAS to understand how chemical bonding in coordination complexes can be manipulated to enhance small molecule reactivity and ligand binding affinity.

Lisa Dunn SSRL User Research Administration, 2575 Sand Hill Rd., Menlo Park, CA 94025  (SSRL Liason, Ex Officio)
Lisa has worked at SSRL since 1986, and has been part of the User Research Administration team since 2000. Lisa manages the administration proposal review and scheduling for macromolecular crystallography and biological small angle scattering beam lines. Lisa earned her Bachelor of Science degree from San Jose State University.

Vinayak V. Hassan, Applied Materials, Santa Clara, CA  95054
Vinayak is a Process Engineer in the Office of the CTO at Applied Materials. He has a Masters in Materials Science & Engineering from Stanford University. His graduate research was in the field of ultrafast materials science with Professor David Reis in Applied Physics. The focus of his research was to study the non-equilibrium phonon dynamics in semiconductors, using time resolved optical & x ray spectroscopy. After he joined Applied Materials in 2011, he became part of a team developing advanced materials technology for the semiconductor industry. His current research is geared towards understanding the optical & electrical properties of sub nanometer semiconductor films. He has an extensive background in materials characterization of thin films. Some of his past & current projects involve x-ray scattering measurements at APS, SSRL & ALS. He recognizes the crucial role synchrotron facilities play in the advancement of the semiconductor industry.

Debra Hausladen, Stanford University, Stanford, CA  94305
Debra is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in Scott Fendorf’s laboratory at Stanford University. Prior to studying soil biogeochemistry, she worked in MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering developing a nanowire membrane for passive sampling of hydrophobic organic contaminants. Her current research focuses on the mobility of trace metals (e.g., Cr, Mn, Fe) in soils under fluctuating redox conditions. Debra combines synchrotron-based techniques (e.g., bulk and micro X-ray absorption spectroscopy, micro-X-ray fluorescence mapping, X-ray micro-tomography) with bulk chemical analysis and molecular microbiological techniques to understand how microbial communities influence contaminant cycling within physically complex soils and sediments. She has been a frequent user of SSRL since 2010 and has also conducted research at ALS.

Marco Keiluweit, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA  01003
Marco, Assistant Professor, Soil and Microbial Biogeochemistry School or Earth and Sustainability University of Massachusetts—Amherst, studies how climate change impacts nutrient cycling in soils and sediments. To resolve the sub-micron scale microbe-mineral-organic matter interactions that drive the cycling of critical elements such as C, N, Ca, Fe, Mn, and Al in subsurface environments, he has employed soft and hard X-ray spectro- and microscopy approaches. To date, this research has involved synchrotron experiments at SSRL, Advanced Light Source, and Canadian Light Source. Marco received his PhD in Soil Biogeochemistry from Oregon State University. Prior to assuming his position at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, he was a Lawrence Scholar in the Chemical Sciences Division at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Earth System Science at Stanford University.

Cathy Knotts, SSRL User Research Administration  Manager, 2575 Sand Hill Rd., Menlo Park, CA 94025  (SSRL Liaison, Ex Officio)
Cathy has managed  SSRL User Research Administration since November 2000, taking on the additonal responsibilities for establishing and managing a joint SSRL/LCLS User Office from 2007-2015 (LCLS began operations with the first user assisted commissioning experiments in 2009). Before joining SLAC, Cathy managed administrative operations and corporate communications in the biotechnology industry (1994-2000). Prior to moving to California to help start a biotech company, she was a management analyst for the National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health in Maryland. Cathy graduated from the University of Maryland majoring in Health Science and Policy.

Stosh Kozimor, Los Alamos National Laboratory, C-NR, Los Alamos, NM 87545  (SSRL UEC Past Chair 2015)
Stosh Kozimor is a staff member at LANL. He conducted his graduate research with Professor William J. Evans at the University of California, Irvine in inorganic and organometallic synthesis, and his work was recognized in 2005 by the UCI Department of Chemistry Joan Rowland Award for meritorious performance in graduate studies. In the same year, he was offered a Director's Fellowship from LANL to continue his studies in actinide science. However he deferred, and accepted a position at the University of California with Professor Jeffrey R. Long to study magnetic exchange between actinides and transition metals. During this time he was awarded a Distinguished Reines Postdoctoral Fellowship at LANL and presented an opportunity to work in a completely different field, using synchrotron-generated radiation to probe electronic structure. Currently his interests lie in research that involves energy and the environment through fields loosely defined by synthesis, electronic structure, and synchrotron spectroscopy.

Dan Lin, Caltech, Pasadena, CA  91125
Daniel (Dan) Lin is a fourth-year graduate student in Andre Hoelz's laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. His projects focus on determining the structure of the nuclear pore complex using a combination of x-ray crystallography and other biochemical and biophysical techniques. Many of these projects involve x-ray diffraction experiments of large protein complexes that exhibit weak and/or anisotropic diffraction and require optimal beamline performance and data collection strategies. Prior to joining the Hoelz laboratory, Dan worked in Niraj Tolia's laboratory at the Washington University School of Medicine on the structure of malaria invasion proteins while studying as an undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis. Dan is a frequent user of beamlines at SSRL and APS and has also performed experiments at ALS and NSLS.

Feng Lin, Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, VA  24061
Feng is Assistant Professor, Virgnia Tech Department of Chemistry. Feng holds a Bachelor’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Tianjin University, and an MSc degree and a PhD degree in Materials Science from the Colorado School of Mines. Feng joins the department after working for QuantumScape Corporation as a Senior Member of Technical Staff and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab as a postdoc. Prof. Lin’s expertise includes energy materials for batteries, smart windows and catalysis, as well as advanced analytical techniques for the in operando characterization of these technologies at various length scales. His research activities at Virginia Tech will focus primarily on electrochemical energy systems, including rechargeable batteries and single atom electrocatalysts for renewable fuels.

Lisa Mayhew, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO
Lisa graduated from Colgate University in 2000 with a BA in Geology. She began her Master’s research investigating the relationship between the geochemical characteristics and microbial communities present at fumaroles on the Galapagos Islands in 2004 and graduated with a Master’s degree in Geological Sciences from the University of Idaho in 2006. She then moved to Geological Sciences at the University of Colorado – Boulder working with Dr. Alexis Templeton to design laboratory experiments to investigate the production of H₂ gas from water-rock reactions at low temperatures (<150°C). A major component of her PhD thesis work was the implementation of synchrotron radiation based techniques to investigate the partitioning of Fe into the diverse, microscale secondary mineral phases formed during the water-rock reactions. She worked  with Dr. Sam Webb on SSRL BL2-3 to develop a method of multiple energy mapping within the Fe K-edge, coupled with μXANES analyses, to investigate the speciation and distribution of Fe at the microscale. She also has experience collecting bulk XANES and EXAFS spectra from powdered rocks and minerals on SSRL BL 4-1 and 11-2. These spectra have been incorporated into an extensive Fe model compound spectral library. The application of synchrotron techniques has enabled unique insights into the mechanism of H₂ production from low temperature water-rock reactions. She also implemented this method to investigate the potential for microorganisms, present in the reaction system, to affect the reaction pathways and products. Lisa completed her PhD in June 2012 and is a Research Associate in the Templeton Geomicrobiology Laboratory at the University of Colorado – Boulder where she continues to apply synchrotron techniques to new experimental systems and investigate samples from natural geologic systems undergoing similar low temperature reactions. She plans to expand her synchrotron experience to include surface spectroscopic techniques.

Blaine Mooers, University of Oklahoma Health Science Center, Oklahoma City, OK 73190
Blaine entered crystallography as a graduate student by working on problems in DNA structure with Dr. Shing Ho at Oregon State University. He switched to problems in protein structure as a post-doc with Dr. Brian Matthews at the University of Oregon. While a post-doc, he started using synchrotron radiation to collect atomic resolution data from proteins and made his first trip to SSRL in 1999 where he has been returning almost every year. He started a lab at the University of Oklahoma Health Science Center that is focused on structural studies of RNAs from the RNA editing system in the mitochondrion of trypanosomes. His lab has been involved in SAXS studies for the past three years and started to make regular trips to BL 4-2 in addition to the protein crystallography beam lines. http://structuralbiology.ou.edu/

Richard Sandberg, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545  (Ex Officio, LCLS UEC)
Richard is on the nanotechnology and advanced spectroscopy team at Center for Advanced Solar Photophysics at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. and MS degrees from the University of Colorado Boulder, BS from Brigham Young University.

Edward Snell, Hauptman Woodward Institute, Buffalo, NY  14203
Eddie's background is X-ray crystallography, bio spectroscopy and small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), which are complementary techniques that are invaluable to furthering the structural and mechanistic information on the biological world.

Mariano Trigo, Stanford University, Stanford, CA  94025
Mariano is a staff scientist at the Stanford PULSE Institute, a Stanford independent laboratory focused  on ultrafast and short wavelength science and technology.

Beth Wurzburg, LBNL, Joint Genome Institute, Berkeley, CA 94305 USA  (Ex Officio NUFO)
Beth was a Research Associate at the LBNL Joint Genome Institute. Previously, Beth was a Research Associate in the laboratory of Prof. Ted Jardetzky. She trained as a protein biochemist (Don Wiley's laboratory) and as a crystallographer (Ted Jardetzky's laboratory), and she has been collecting data at synchrotrons since 1995. Her research interests include biophysical studies of proteins of the immune system and of human pathogens.

David Bushnell, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
Dave Bushnell is a Sr. Research Associate in the Department of Structural Biology at Stanford University.  His research focuses on using structural methods such as electron microscopy and protein crystallography to understand and control the process of gene expression.   Dave received his BS degree from Cornell University and went on to complete a PhD in Biophysics from Stanford University.   While working in the lab of Prof. Roger Kornberg, Dave was part of the team that solved the atomic structure of the 10 subunit yeast RNA Polymerase II which contributed to Prof. Kornberg being awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  Dave has continued his structural studies of RNA polymerase II mechanism including solving the structure of RNA Polymerase II with the inhibitor alpha-amanitin.  Recently he has been involved with Cocrystal Pharma Inc., a small start up that uses structure guided drug discovery techniques to develop novel anti-viral therapies.  Dave’s first beamtime at SSRL was May 5^th, 1994 and he has been an active user ever since.  In addition to experience at SSRL he has performed experiments at LCLS, ALS, APS, CHESS and NSLS.  

Kelly Chacón, Reed College, Portland, OR  97202-8199
Kelly is Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Division of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at Reed College. She studies how metal ions are trafficked in the cell by using a mixture of biochemistry and spectroscopy. Her lab is particularly interested in catching the physical act of metal ion transfer from one metalloprotein to another, as well as characterizing newly discovered metalloproteins. This work heavily relies upon bi-yearly lab trips to a number of synchrotron lightsources. She has been an SSRL user since 2010 and has also conducted research at Argonne and Brookhaven National Labs. Her experience with dilute biological EXAFS began when she was a lab technician, prompting her to devote her subsequent graduate work on selenomethionine active site labeling as a spectroscopic probe of metalloprotein structure-function and metal transfer. She was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow at Oregon Health & Science University working with Professor Ninian J. Blackburn, and is also the 2016 Chair of the Gordon Research Seminar in Bioinorganic Chemistry. She received her B.S. in Chemistry with honors from Portland State University in 2009.

Scott R. Daly, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA  52317 
Scott joined the Department of Chemistry at the University of Iowa in 2014 after spending two years as a faculty member at the George Washington University in Washington, DC. He performed his graduate work in chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with Professor Gregory S. Girolami. His thesis focused on the synthesis and characterization of volatile inorganic compounds for thin film applications. After graduating, he accepted a Seaborg Postdoctoral Fellowship at Los Alamos National Laboratory. There he joined the LANL XAS program and spent two years investigating the role of covalency and electronic structure on actinide extractant selectivity. He has been an SSRL user since 2010 and has participated with NUFO at the 2013 user science exhibition and Congressional office visits in DC. His current research uses synchrotron spectroscopy and in-situ XAS to understand how chemical bonding in coordination complexes can be manipulated to enhance small molecule reactivity and ligand binding affinity.

Lisa Dunn SSRL User Research Administration, 2575 Sand Hill Rd., Menlo Park, CA 94025  (SSRL Liason, Ex Officio)
Lisa has worked at SSRL since 1986, and has been part of the User Research Administration team since 2000. Lisa manages the administration proposal review and scheduling for macromolecular crystallography and biological small angle scattering beam lines. Lisa earned her Bachelor of Science degree from San Jose State University.

Petra Fromme Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ (Ex Officio, LCLS UEC)

Colleen Hansel Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Dept. of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry, Woods Hole, MA 02543-1050 (SSRL UEC 2014 Chair)
Colleen is an Associate Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and was previously an Associate Professor at Harvard University. The foundation of her research is metal biogeochemistry and microbe-mineral interactions. Colleen conducted her graduate work at Stanford University with Scott Fendorf exploring microbial mediated Fe mineral transformations. She continued her research at Stanford as a postdoc, where she identified novel mechanisms of microbial Mn(II) oxidation and Mn oxide formation. Currently, Colleen’s research group continues to explore the mechanisms of microbially mediated metal (e.g., Fe, Mn, Hg) cycling and mineralization and the subsequent impact of those transformations on the ecology and health of microbial populations. Colleen has been a user at SSRL since 1998 and has also conducted research at ALS and APS.

Vinayak V. Hassan,  Applied Materials, Santa Clara, CA  95054
Vinayak is a Process Engineer in the Office of the CTO at Applied Materials. He has a Masters in Materials Science & Engineering from Stanford University. His graduate research was in the field of ultrafast materials science with Professor David Reis in Applied Physics. The focus of his research was to study the non-equilibrium phonon dynamics in semiconductors, using time resolved optical & x ray spectroscopy. After he joined Applied Materials in 2011, he became part of a team developing advanced materials technology for the semiconductor industry. His current research is geared towards understanding the optical & electrical properties of sub nanometer semiconductor films. He has an extensive background in materials characterization of thin films. Some of his past & current projects involve x-ray scattering measurements at APS, SSRL & ALS. He recognizes the crucial role synchrotron facilities play in the advancement of the semiconductor industry.

Debra Hausladen, Stanford University, Stanford, CA  94305
Debra is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in Scott Fendorf’s laboratory at Stanford University. Prior to studying soil biogeochemistry, she worked in MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering developing a nanowire membrane for passive sampling of hydrophobic organic contaminants. Her current research focuses on the mobility of trace metals (e.g., Cr, Mn, Fe) in soils under fluctuating redox conditions. Debra combines synchrotron-based techniques (e.g., bulk and micro X-ray absorption spectroscopy, micro-X-ray fluorescence mapping, X-ray micro-tomography) with bulk chemical analysis and molecular microbiological techniques to understand how microbial communities influence contaminant cycling within physically complex soils and sediments. She has been a frequent user of SSRL since 2010 and has also conducted research at ALS.

Chris Kim, Chapman University, Physical Sciences, One University Ave., Orange, CA 92866  (Ex officio SNUG) 
Chris is a Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Programs in the Schmidt College of Science and Technology at Chapman University in Southern California. He conducted his graduate work at Stanford University under Gordon Brown and continued his research as a post-doc at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory with Glenn Waychunas. He has been a user at SSRL since 1996 and has also conducted research at the ALS and APS. Currently, he is studying trends in the speciation, concentration, and distribution of heavy metals in mine wastes as well as the mechanisms and extent of metal uptake and (co-)precipitation with iron oxyhydroxide nanoparticles. Chris is also involved in increasing opportunities for undergraduate students to conduct research at national synchrotron facilities.

Cathy Knotts, SSRL User Research Administration  Manager, 2575 Sand Hill Rd., Menlo Park, CA 94025  (SSRL Liaison, Ex Officio)
Cathy has managed  SSRL User Research Administration since November 2000, taking on the additonal responsibilities for establishing and managing a joint SSRL/LCLS User Office from 2007-2015 (LCLS began operations with the first user assisted commissioning experiments in 2009). Before joining SLAC, Cathy managed administrative operations and corporate communications in the biotechnology industry (1994-2000). Prior to moving to California to help start a biotech company, she was a management analyst for the National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health in Maryland. Cathy graduated from the University of Maryland majoring in Health Science and Policy.

Stosh Kozimor, Los Alamos National Laboratory, C-NR, Los Alamos, NM 87545  (SSRL UEC Past Chair 2015)
Stosh Kozimor is a staff member at LANL. He conducted his graduate research with Professor William J. Evans at the University of California, Irvine in inorganic and organometallic synthesis, and his work was recognized in 2005 by the UCI Department of Chemistry Joan Rowland Award for meritorious performance in graduate studies. In the same year, he was offered a Director's Fellowship from LANL to continue his studies in actinide science. However he deferred, and accepted a position at the University of California with Professor Jeffrey R. Long to study magnetic exchange between actinides and transition metals. During this time he was awarded a Distinguished Reines Postdoctoral Fellowship at LANL and presented an opportunity to work in a completely different field, using synchrotron-generated radiation to probe electronic structure. Currently his interests lie in research that involves energy and the environment through fields loosely defined by synthesis, electronic structure, and synchrotron spectroscopy.

Dan Lin, Caltech, Pasadena, CA  91125
Daniel (Dan) Lin is a fourth-year graduate student in Andre Hoelz's laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. His projects focus on determining the structure of the nuclear pore complex using a combination of x-ray crystallography and other biochemical and biophysical techniques. Many of these projects involve x-ray diffraction experiments of large protein complexes that exhibit weak and/or anisotropic diffraction and require optimal beamline performance and data collection strategies. Prior to joining the Hoelz laboratory, Dan worked in Niraj Tolia's laboratory at the Washington University School of Medicine on the structure of malaria invasion proteins while studying as an undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis. Dan is a frequent user of beamlines at SSRL and APS and has also performed experiments at ALS and NSLS.

Feng Lin, Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, VA  24061
Feng is Assistant Professor, Virgnia Tech Department of Chemistry. Feng holds a Bachelor’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Tianjin University, and an MSc degree and a PhD degree in Materials Science from the Colorado School of Mines. Feng joins the department after working for QuantumScape Corporation as a Senior Member of Technical Staff and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab as a postdoc. Prof. Lin’s expertise includes energy materials for batteries, smart windows and catalysis, as well as advanced analytical techniques for the in operando characterization of these technologies at various length scales. His research activities at Virginia Tech will focus primarily on electrochemical energy systems, including rechargeable batteries and single atom electrocatalysts for renewable fuels.

Lisa Mayhew, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO
Lisa graduated from Colgate University in 2000 with a BA in Geology. She began her Master’s research investigating the relationship between the geochemical characteristics and microbial communities present at fumaroles on the Galapagos Islands in 2004 and graduated with a Master’s degree in Geological Sciences from the University of Idaho in 2006. She then moved to Geological Sciences at the University of Colorado – Boulder working with Dr. Alexis Templeton to design laboratory experiments to investigate the production of H₂ gas from water-rock reactions at low temperatures (<150°C). A major component of her PhD thesis work was the implementation of synchrotron radiation based techniques to investigate the partitioning of Fe into the diverse, microscale secondary mineral phases formed during the water-rock reactions. She worked  with Dr. Sam Webb on SSRL BL2-3 to develop a method of multiple energy mapping within the Fe K-edge, coupled with μXANES analyses, to investigate the speciation and distribution of Fe at the microscale. She also has experience collecting bulk XANES and EXAFS spectra from powdered rocks and minerals on SSRL BL 4-1 and 11-2. These spectra have been incorporated into an extensive Fe model compound spectral library. The application of synchrotron techniques has enabled unique insights into the mechanism of H₂ production from low temperature water-rock reactions. She also implemented this method to investigate the potential for microorganisms, present in the reaction system, to affect the reaction pathways and products. Lisa completed her PhD in June 2012 and is a Research Associate in the Templeton Geomicrobiology Laboratory at the University of Colorado – Boulder where she continues to apply synchrotron techniques to new experimental systems and investigate samples from natural geologic systems undergoing similar low temperature reactions. She plans to expand her synchrotron experience to include surface spectroscopic techniques.

Blaine Mooers, University of Oklahoma Health Science Center, Oklahoma City, OK 73190
Blaine entered crystallography as a graduate student by working on problems in DNA structure with Dr. Shing Ho at Oregon State University. He switched to problems in protein structure as a post-doc with Dr. Brian Matthews at the University of Oregon. While a post-doc, he started using synchrotron radiation to collect atomic resolution data from proteins and made his first trip to SSRL in 1999 where he has been returning almost every year. He started a lab at the University of Oklahoma Health Science Center that is focused on structural studies of RNAs from the RNA editing system in the mitochondrion of trypanosomes. His lab has been involved in SAXS studies for the past three years and started to make regular trips to BL 4-2 in addition to the protein crystallography beam lines. http://structuralbiology.ou.edu/

Edward Snell, Hauptman Woodward Institute, Buffalo, NY  14203
Eddie's background is X-ray crystallography, bio spectroscopy and small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), which are complementary techniques that are invaluable to furthering the structural and mechanistic information on the biological world.

Mariano Trigo, Stanford University, Stanford, CA  94025
Mariano is a staff scientist at the Stanford PULSE Institute, a Stanford independent laboratory focused  on ultrafast and short wavelength science and technology.

Beth Wurzburg, LBNL, Joint Genome Institute, Berkeley, CA 94305 USA  (Ex Officio NUFO)
Beth was a Research Associate at the LBNL Joint Genome Institute. Previously, Beth was a Research Associate in the laboratory of Prof. Ted Jardetzky. She trained as a protein biochemist (Don Wiley's laboratory) and as a crystallographer (Ted Jardetzky's laboratory), and she has been collecting data at synchrotrons since 1995. Her research interests include biophysical studies of proteins of the immune system and of human pathogens.

Jordi Cabana 
University of Illinois at Chicago, IL 60607
Jordi Cabana recently joined the University of Illinois in 2013. Prior to that time, Jordi was a Research Scientist at LBNL. He moved to the US in 2005 to join Prof. Clare P. Grey’s group at the State University of New York at Stony Brook as a Postdoctoral Research Associate, after completing his Ph.D. in Materials Science at the Institute for Materials Science of Barcelona in Spain in 2004. Jordi's research work focuses on the design and characterization of materials for electrochemical energy storage, with emphasis placed on the understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of reaction. He has extensively used long range (X-ray and neutron diffraction) and short range (X-ray absorption spectroscopy, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) characterization techniques, both in situ and ex situ, to probe crystal and electronic structure features of a variety of materials. He has performed some of these experiments at SSRL, ALS and NSLS. More recently, Jordi has leveraged technical developments in nanoscale chemical imaging to investigate kinetic and thermodynamic factors that control redox phase transformations in single particle and their ensembles.

Elyse Coletta 
Stanford University, Dept. of Engineering, Stanford, CA 94305
Originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Elyse completed her B.S. with a double major in Chemical Engineering and Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University in 2009. Between 2007 and 2009 she worked on catalyst related projects at Exxon Mobil as an intern three different times. Her undergraduate research project involved synthesizing metallic nanoparticles. Currently she is a 4th year Ph.D. student in the Chemical Engineering Department at Stanford University. Her graduate research involves synthesizing and characterizing materials for fuel cell membrane applications, and she is currently funded by a NDSEG fellowship.

Serena DeBeer (Past Chair)
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 / Max Planck Society, Germany
Serena DeBeer recently joined the Max Planck Institute für Bioanorganische Chemie, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany. Prior to that time, She was an Assistant Professor in the Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department at Cornell University. She holds a B.S. from Southwestern University, a Ph.D. from Stanford University, and she worked for several years as a staff scientist at SSRL. Her research focuses on the development and application of synchrotron spectroscopies to understand fundamental questions in biological and chemical catalysis.

Lisa Dunn (SSRL Liason, Ex Officio)
SSRL, User Research Administration, 2575 Sand Hill Rd., Menlo Park, CA 94025
Lisa has worked at SSRL since 1986. She has managed the administration of protein crystallography proposals and experiments since 2000. Lisa earned her Bachelor of Science degree from San Jose State University.

Paul Evans
University of Wisconsin, Materials Science and Engineering, Madison, WI 53706
Paul Evans's research group focuses on the development and application of microscopy and scattering techniques to physical problems associated with emerging electronic materials, including complex oxide ferroeletrics and multiferroics as well as organic and inorganic semiconductor interfaces. Particular areas of interest with respect to x-ray science are in time-resolved and ultrafast probes and the incorporation of ultrafast time resolution into scattering techniques yielding nanometer-scale spatial resolution. Evans received PhD and SM degrees from Harvard University (Applied Physics), a BS degree in Engineering Physics from Cornell Univeristy, and was a postdoctoral researcher at Bell Labs.

Colleen Hansel (SSRL UEC Chair)
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Dept. of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry, Woods Hole, MA 02543-1050
Colleen is an Associate Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and was previously an Associate Professor at Harvard University. The foundation of her research is metal biogeochemistry and microbe-mineral interactions. Colleen conducted her graduate work at Stanford University with Scott Fendorf exploring microbial mediated Fe mineral transformations. She continued her research at Stanford as a postdoc, where she identified novel mechanisms of microbial Mn(II) oxidation and Mn oxide formation. Currently, Colleen’s research group continues to explore the mechanisms of microbially mediated metal (e.g., Fe, Mn, Hg) cycling and mineralization and the subsequent impact of those transformations on the ecology and health of microbial populations. Colleen has been a user at SSRL since 1998 and has also conducted research at ALS and APS.

Sarah Hayes (SSRL UEC Past Chair)
University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AL 99775
Sarah Hayes is an assistant professor at the University of Alaska, Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry. Prior to this position, she was a Mendenhall postdoctoral fellow at the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park. She performed her Ph.D. research at the University of Arizona with Dr. Jon Chorover on the speciation of toxic metals in arid mine tailings. She gave a talk on the applications of microprobe spectroscopy to environmental scienceAt the 2009 SSRL user meeting. Her current work at the USGS with Andrea Foster and Laurie Balistrieri involves studying the sorption mechanism of tellurium (used in solar panel manufacture) to iron oxides and tellurium speciation in various geomedia. Her current research interests are focused on understanding the link between toxic metal speciation in geomedia and their associated risks to human and ecosystem health.

Chris Kim (Ex officio SNUG) 
Chapman University, Physical Sciences, One University Ave., Orange, CA 92866
Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Sciences at Chapman University in Southern California. He conducted his graduate work at Stanford University under Gordon Brown and continued his research as a post-doc at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory with Glenn Waychunas. He has been a user at SSRL since 1996 and has also conducted research at the ALS and APS. Currently, he is studying trends in the speciation, concentration, and distribution of heavy metals in mine wastes as well as the mechanisms and extent of metal uptake and (co-)precipitation with iron oxyhydroxide nanoparticles. Chris is also involved in increasing opportunities for undergraduate students to conduct research at national synchrotron facilities.

Cathy Knotts (SSRL/LCLS Liaison, Ex Officio)
SSRL, User Research Administration, 2575 Sand Hill Rd., Menlo Park, CA 94025
Cathy has managed  SSRL User Research Administration since November 2000, taking on the additonal responsibilities for establishing and managing a joint SSRL/LCLS User Office in 2009 when LCLS began operations with the first user assisted commissioning experiments. Before joining SLAC, Cathy managed administrative operations and corporate communications in the biotechnology industry (1994-2000). Prior to moving to California to help start a biotech company, she was a management analyst for National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health in Maryland. Cathy graduated from the University of Maryland majoring in Health Science and Policy.

Stosh Kozimor 
Los Alamos National Laboratory, C-NR, Los Alamos, NM 87545
Stosh Kozimor is a staff member at LANL. He conducted his graduate research with Professor William J. Evans at the University of California, Irvine in inorganic and organometallic synthesis, and his work was recognized in 2005 by the UCI Department of Chemistry Joan Rowland Award for meritorious performance in graduate studies. In the same year, he was offered a Director's Fellowship from LANL to continue his studies in actinide science. However he deferred, and accepted a position at the University of California with Professor Jeffrey R. Long to study magnetic exchange between actinides and transition metals. During this time he was awarded a Distinguished Reines Postdoctoral Fellowship at LANL and presented an opportunity to work in a completely different field, using synchrotron-generated radiation to probe electronic structure. Currently his interests lie in research that involves energy and the environment through fields loosely defined by synthesis, electronic structure, and synchrotron spectroscopy.

Rodrigo Noriega 
Stanford University, Applied Physics, Stanford, CA 94305
Rodrigo Noriega earned his BS in Engineering Physics from Tecnologico de Monterrey in Mexico (2006). He is currently a fifth year graduate student in the Applied Physics program at Stanford University working under the direction of Prof. Alberto Salleo. His research focuses on the characterization of dopants and defect states in zinc oxide nanostructures, as well as on the measurement and modeling of disorder in organic semiconductors.

Juana Rudati 
Carl Zeiss Microscopy (formerly Xradia), Concord, CA 94520
Dr. Rudati is R&D Project Manager at Xradia where she concentrates on advancing the capabilities of high-resolution x-ray microscopes (30nm and beyond). She has also developed and used XRF/XRD instruments. As a postdoc, Dr. Rudati was stationed at SLAC. She frequents both SSRL and APS to perform experiments with and test improvements on x-ray microscopes. She joined this company in 2006.

Alberto Salleo
Stanford University, Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford, CA 94305
After obtaining a PhD in Materials Science from UC Berkeley in 2001, Alberto Salleo joined Xerox PARC as a post-doctoral fellow and was appointed Assistant Professor in Materials Science at Stanford University in 2005. He is the recipient of a Fulbright fellowship, two Xerox Performance Awards, the NSF Career Award, the 3M Untenured Faculty Award and the SPIE Early Career Award. His main area of research is the investigation of structure-property relationships in organic semiconductors with emphasis on the role of defects. In collaboration with M. Toney at SSRL his group has developed synchrotron-based x-ray diffraction techniques to measure quantitatively paracrystalline disorder and degree of texture and crystallinity in semiconducting polymers. These microstructure parameters are used to understand how disorder at different length-scales affects charge transport. His group has also used anomalous X-ray diffraction to study Al and GA doping of ZnO nanostructures.

Edward Snell 
Hauptman Woodward Institute, Buffalo, NY
Eddie's background is X-ray crystallography, bio spectroscopy and small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), which are complementary techniques that are invaluable to furthering the structural and mechanistic information on the biological world.

Jessica Vey 
California State University Northridge, Pharmacology, Northridge, CA 91330
Jessica Vey is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at CSUN. She was trained as a protein crystallographer as a graduate student in Dr. Catherine Drennan¹s laboratory at MIT and as a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Tina Iverson¹s laboratory at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She has been an SSRL user since 2002, and is now using protein crystallography, biochemistry and bioinformatics to characterize selected flavin-containing monooxygenases, with the long-term goal of rationally engineering enzymes to alter their substrate specificity.

Beth Wurzburg (Ex Officio NUFO)
LBNL, Joint Genome Institute, Berkeley, CA 94305 USA
Beth Wurzburg was a Research Associate at the LBNL Joint Genome Institute. Previously, Beth was a Research Associate in the laboratory of Prof. Ted Jardetzky. She trained as a protein biochemist (Don Wiley's laboratory) and as a crystallographer (Ted Jardetzky's laboratory), and she has been collecting data at synchrotrons since 1995. Her research interests include biophysical studies of proteins of the immune system and of human pathogens.