Congratulations to Physical Sciences Area staff members who have received 2023 Berkeley Lab Director’s Awards.
Tony Spadafora, Physics Division Deputy, received the Berkeley Lab Stewardship Award for his “career-spanning contributions to the leadership and management of diverse scientific projects in the Physics Division, which had a great impact on their success and brought wide recognition to LBNL, and for providing thoughtful guidance to numerous Berkeley leaders and colleagues.”
The Director’s Awards for Exceptional Achievement were presented to PSA staff members and teams in several categories.
Samuel Barber, a research scientist in the Accelerator Technology & Applied Physics (ATAP) Division, received an Early Scientific Career Award “for leadership and technical contributions that paved the way for robust laser-plasma accelerators (LPAs), and for pioneering their applications as high-brightness injectors and free-electron laser drivers, resulting in demonstration of coherent gain in an LPA-driven FEL.”
Lee Bernstein, a physicist leading the Nuclear Science Division’s Nuclear Data Group and an associate professor in UC Berkeley’s Nuclear Engineering Department, received a Tech Transfer Award for supporting the “commercialization of his invention, a production method for a groundbreaking but rare cancer drug called AC-225. His innovation and commitment will save thousands and boost the Lab’s reputation as a leader in nuclear medical technology.”
Asmita Patel, ATAP Division Deputy for Operations, and Brian Quiter, a staff physicist and deputy head of the Nuclear Science Division’s Applied Nuclear Physics Program, are members of the Mentoring@LBNL team, which won the IDEA Award for Mentorship “for building the critical foundations of a complex mentoring ecosystem that fulfills different employee needs around mentorship while also modeling the value of team science and cross-Lab collaboration over a 3 year period.”
Ingrid Peterson, an Engineering Technical Associate in the Physics Division, is a member of the Design Basis Threat (DBT) Implementation Core Team that received an Organizational Impact Award “for the conclusion of a 3-year effort to install over $1.4 million dollars of security systems to include developing new lab-wide policies, procedures, and controls to protect high consequence materials resulting in the full acceptance of the LBNL DBT program by DOE.”
The cross-divisional WarpX Team received a Scientific Achievement Award “for an innovative accelerator modeling development code, WarpX, which pushed forward the state of the art via algorithmic innovation and high-performance computing at exascale – achievements made in the Berkeley Lab tradition of team science.” Team members from ATAP include Jean-Luc Vay, Axel Huebl, Remi Lehe, Arianna Formenti, Marco Garten, Ryan Sandberg, Olga Shapoval, and Edoardo Zoni.
The 2023 Director’s Achievement Awards ceremony will be held on Wednesday, November 8, at 3:00 PM PT via livestream video and in Berkeley Lab’s Building 50 Auditorium, where there will be a reception immediately following.
Update November 13, 2023:
Watch the video recording of the 2023 Director’s Achievement Awards ceremony, held on November 8. (Berkeley Lab YouTube channel)
