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SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

SSRLUO 2011 Executive Committee Members

Past Committee Members: SSRLUO Home | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 | 1996 | 1995



Serena DeBeer


Cornell University, Dept. of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Ithaca, NY 14853
Serena DeBeer is an Assistant Professor in the Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department at Cornell University. She holds a B.S. from Southwestern University and a Ph.D. from Stanford University, and spent 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.
email: serena.debeer@cornell.edu ph: 607-255-2352

Lisa Dunn (SSRL Liason)


SSRL, User Research Administration, 2575 Sand Hill Rd., Menlo Park, CA 94025
  Lisa has been continuously employed at SSRL since 1986, and has managed the administration of protein crystallography experiments since 2000. Lisa earned her Bachelor of Science degree from San Jose State University.
email: lisa@slac.stnaford.edu ph: 650-926-2087

Ben Gilbert


LBNL, Earth Sciences Division, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
  Benjamin Gilbert is a scientist in Lawrence Berkeley National Lab's Earth Science Division with a research program studying the materials properties and reactivity of naturally occurring nanoparticles. Following pH work at the UW-Madison SRC on soft x-ray spectromicroscopy, his experimental program includes high energy x-ray scattering at the APS, soft x-ray emission and absorption spectroscopy at the ALS, and small-angle x-ray scattering and EXAFS spectroscopy at the SSRL. He is excited by the development of fast x-ray techniques to study chemical processes with time resolution.
email: bgilbert@lbl.gov ph: 510-495-2748

Thomas Earnest (Ex officio LCLSUEC)


LBNL, Physical Biosciences Division, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
  Thomas Earnest is a senior scientist in Lawrence Berkeley National Lab's Physical Biosciences Division. His research focuses on structural systems biology with a focus on cellular signaling and multicellular development, and on technology development of instrumentation, resources, and methodology for proteomic research, in particular automation and robotics for structural biology and for the production and study of biomolecular complexes, as well as the development of instrumentation and approaches to structural studies using crystallography, solution x-ray scattering, and coherent x-ray imaging methods.
email: tnearnest@lbl.gov ph: 510-486-4603

Sarah Hayes


US Geological Survey, Soil, Water and Environmental Science, 345 Middlefield Rd., Menlo Park, 94025
  Sarah Hayes is currently 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.
email: shayes@usgs.gov ph: 650-329-5449

Yung-Jin (Joey) Hu


University of California-Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  Yung-Jin (Joey) Hu is starting his 5th year in Prof. Heino Nitsche's group and is a joint graduate student at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His research interests include probing molecular-level interactions of plutonium on the surface of model environmental mineral compounds through the use of XAS and understanding the effects of stochastic and systematic noise in measured EXAFS spectra. He has utilized the experimental resources at SSRL since 2006 and measurements conducted there are a major part of his doctoral thesis.
email: yhu@lbl.gov ph: 650-329-5449

Leslie Jimison


Stanford University, Department of Materials Science & Engineering, 476 Lomita Mall, Stanford, CA 94305

Leslie Jimison is a fifth year Ph.D. student working for Alberto Salleo in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Stanford University. Leslie is a regular user at SSRL. She uses X-ray diffraction at beam lines 11-3, 7-2 and 2-1 to investigate the microstructure of organic semiconducting thin films. She uses the diffraction data to correlate microstructural details with electronic performance of organic thin film transistors. She is originally from North Carolina, where she graduated with a B.S. in Materials Science at NC State University.  

email: ljimison@stanford.edu
ph: 919-815-4851

Katherine A. Kantardjieff (Chair)


CSU Pomona/Keck Center for Molecular Structure
Professor and Chair, Department of Chemistry, Cal Poly Pomona (on leave from CSU Fullerton until May 2011). Director of the W.M. Keck Foundation Center for Molecular Structure. She completed Ph.D and postdoctoral work in physical chemistry and structural biology at UCLA with David Eisenberg. Kantardjieff's laboratory is the only member of the Tuberculosis Structural Genomics Consortium from a non-PhD granting institution. CMolS is comprised of comprehensive X-ray diffraction and computational laboratories supporting research and education as a core facility in the 23-campus CSU, as well as the STaRBURSTT-CyberDiffraction Consortium, a nationwide virtual organization of predominantly undergraduate institutions. CMolS pioneered the use of remote instrumentation access at PUIs and, since 2006, CMolS is a research partner with SSRL. Kantardjieff's own research investigates protein structure and function, employing combined experimental and in silico approaches of crystallography, biophysical methods, computation and informatics. The knowledge gained is applied to the engineering of molecules with specific properties, and to structure-guided drug design. Systems of current interest include bacterial cytochromes c', carbonyl reductases, cholinesterases and several tuberculosis proteins. Kantardjieff and collaborators at Fullerton have established a research computing cluster for computational biochemistry and crystallography, which is part of a larger CSU system-wide, distributed computing resource. Kantardjieff has developed and deployed crystallography and computational courses and workshops, including some delivered entirely online, at both the undergraduate and post-graduate levels. She has led national and international efforts in crystallography education and training. Kantardjieff's activities led to her election to the United States National Committee for Crystallography, of which she is currently Vice Chair.
email: kkantardjieff@csupomona.edu ph: 909-869-3651

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.
email: cskim@chapman.edu ph: 714-628-7363

R. Joseph Kline


NIST, 100 Bureau Dr., Gaitherburg, MD 20899

R. Joseph Kline is a staff scientist in the Polymers Division at NIST. He uses x-ray diffraction to study the morphology and crystallography of semiconducting polymers for organic electronics and photovoltaics. He has been a frequent user at SSRL since 2004 when he was a graduate student at Stanford working for Prof. Michael McGehee. Joe received SSRL's Spicer Young Investigator Award in 2008.

email: joe.kline@nist.gov ph: 301-975-4356

Cathy Knotts (SSRL Liaison)


SSRL, User Research Administration, 2575 Sand Hill Rd., Menlo Park, CA 94025
Manager of User Research Administration since November 2000. Prior to that time, Cathy managed administrative operations and corporate communications in the biotechnology industry. She was a management analyst for National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health before moving to North ern California in 1994. Cathy received a B.S. from the University of Maryland majoring in Health Science and Policy.
email: knotts@slac.stanford.edu ph: 650-926-3191
fax: 926-926-3600

Aaron Lindenberg


Stanford University, SLAC Photon Science MS: 59, 2575 Sand Hill Rd., Menlo Park, CA 94025
Aaron Lindenberg is Assistant Professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Stanford University, joint with Photon Science at SLAC since 2007. Member of the PULSE Institute for Ultrafast Energy Science. Staff scientist at SLAC from 2003-2007. B.A. and Ph.D. in physics from Columbia University and University of California Berkeley, respectively. Research focus is generally on the ultrafast properties of materials.
email: aaronl@stanford.edu ph: 650-926-4558

Wayne Lukens (Ex-Officio)


Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Chemical Sciences, 1 Cyclotron Rd., Berkeley, CA 94720
Wayne Lukens is a staff scientist in the Actinide Chemistry Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His research focuses mainly on the behavior of technetium in nuclear waste and nuclear wasteforms. In addition, his research examines electronic structure and bonding in actinide complexes. He has carried out EXAFS experiments at SSRL since 1992. Currently, he is using EXAFS and XANES to characterize the speciation of technetium in different nuclear wasteforms.
email: wwlukens@lbl.gov ph: 510-486-4305
fax: 510-486-5596

Matthew Sazinsky


Pomona College, Chemistry, 645 N. College Ave., Claremont, CA 91711
Matthew Sazinsky is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Pomona College in Claremont CA. He has been a user at SSRL since 1999 and was trained as a protein crystallographer in Dr. Stephen Lippard's laboratory at MIT and Dr. Amy Rosenzweig's laboratory at Northwestern University. His research focuses on the structural and functional characterization of membrane proteins and metalloenzymes.
email: matthew.sazinsky@pomona.edu ph: 909-607-1011

David Singer


UC Berkeley, Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences
David Singer is a post-doctoral scholar in the Berkeley Nanogeoscience Group, working with Jill Banfield (UC Berkeley) and Glenn Waychunas (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory). He conducted his graduated work with Gordon Brown at Stanford University in the Geological and Environmental Sciences Department. His main research interest is the fate and transport of heavy metals and radionuclides in the environment. He is currently working on determining the mechanisms of uranium sequestration by magnetite. He aims to elucidate the factors which control sorption, nucleation and (co)precipitation, using synchrotron-based X-ray spectroscopy and scattering techniques combined with microscopy and batch-flow sorption experiments. He has been an active user at SSRL, APS, ALS and NSLS, and looks forward to representing the interests of the Environmental and Geoscience community.
email: davidmarcsinger@gmail.com
website: http://nanogeoscience.berkeley.edu/People/DSinger/DSinger.html
ph: 510-495-2359

Beth Wurzburg


Stanford University, Structural Biology, Stanford, CA 94305 USA

Beth Wurzburg is 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.

email: wurzburg@stanford.edu
ph: 650-723-4576

Junko Yano


Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Physical Biosciences, 1 Cyclotron Rd, MS: 66-3, Berkeley, CA 94720

Junko Yano, Ph.D. is a Scientist in the Physical Biosciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She has been using X-ray absorption/emission spectroscopy to study the structure of the catalytic Mn4Ca cluster and the mechanism of photosynthetic water oxidation. She is a frequent user of the spectroscopy beam lines at SSRL for last 8 years. Her current interests are in the application of polarized X-ray absorption spectroscopy to protein single crystals. She was also involved in XRD studies using the diffraction beam lines at the PF, and she has used beam lines at the ALS, APS, SPing8 and ESRF. She would like to reflect users' voice to the improvement of SSRL beamlines.  

email: jyano@lbl.gov
ph: 510-486-4366


2575 Sand Hill Road, MS: 99, Menlo Park, California, 94025, USA Tel: 650-926-4000 | Fax: 650-926-4100