Volker Koch, a Senior Scientist in the Nuclear Theory Group, has been selected as a 2023 Outstanding Referee of the Physical Review journals. 

Physicists in the STAR Collaboration – including Nu Xu, a senior scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Nuclear Science Division (NSD) – have recently reported new evidence that production of an exotic state of matter in collisions of gold nuclei at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) – an atom-smasher at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory – can be “turned off” by lowering the collision energy. 

The protons and neutrons that build the nucleus of the atom frequently pair up in fleeting partnerships called short-range correlations. Correlations can form between a proton and a neutron, between two protons, or between two neutrons. 

Researchers in Berkeley Lab’s Nuclear Theory Group, part of the Nuclear Science Division (NSD), have received DOE funding support for topical theory collaborations in nuclear physics. Theory Group researchers will be involved in all of the five project teams chosen to receive awards as part of this program.

Agnieszka Sorensen, who carried out a substantial amount of her research at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) under the supervision of NSD’s Volker Koch, has received the American Physical Society’s 2023 Dissertation Award in Nuclear Physics for her work using an innovative approach to study the speed of sound in dense nuclear matter.

Dear colleagues,

It brings me great pleasure to announce that Dr. Reynold (Ren) Cooper, Staff Scientist and Deputy Program Head of the Applied Nuclear Physics Program, will be taking on the role of NSD Division Deputy, Science starting November 1, 2022. Ren has gained first-hand experience with the research across several of the NSD Programs and has established himself as a recognized leader in radiation detection and imaging applications.

I am very much looking forward to working with him to advance the vision of a more integrated and interconnected Nuclear Science Division that drives cutting edge nuclear physics while at the same time advancing nuclear science applications for societal needs.

Ren will be taking over from Dr. Alan Poon who has been serving as Division Deputy for over 4 years and who has done an incredible job in supporting three Division Directors through this period, helping to keep the division on a steady course. The whole Division and I are very grateful to Alan for his dedicated and exceptional service over the years. I wish Alan much joy in returning full time to his research in neutrino physics.

Please join me in welcoming Ren to his new role and thanking him for taking on this important duty.

Sincerely,

Reiner Kruecken