2005/2006 SSRL Users' Organization Executive Committee (SSRLUO-EC) Ballot

The SSRL Users' Organization Executive Committee represents the scientific user community to the SSRL administration, the SLAC Scientific Policy Committee and the DOE in matters of operation, policy and improvements. Members are elected by the SSRL user community via majority vote and serve a three-year term.

Slate of Candidates


Vote for 1 environmental/geosciences candidate


  
Gerald Huffman, University of Kentucky
  Christopher S. Kim, Chapman University
(see environmental/geosciences candidate descriptions)

Vote for 1 biospectroscopy candidate


 
Robert Szilagyi, Montana State University
  Junko Yano, LBNL
(see biospectroscopy candidate descriptions)

Vote for 2 macromolecular crystallography candidates


 
Kent Baker, The Salk Institute
  ZsuZsa Hamburger, Stanford University
  Stéphane Richard, The Salk Institute
(see macromolecular crystallography candidate descriptions)

Vote for 1 graduate student (any discipline)


 
Matthew Ginder-Vogel, Stanford University
  Jesse Guzman, University of California, Santa Cruz
  Patrick Hillyard, Stanford University
(see graduate student candidate descriptions)

Your email address:            

PLEASE SUBMIT BALLOT BY 12 noon (PST) on October 17, 2005

 

Continuing SSRLUO-EC Members for 2005/2006

 

   Name Primary Discipline
   Juana Acrivos, CSU San Jose Materials/Chemistry
   Joy Andrews, CSU East Bay (2006 Chair) Materials/Chemistry
   Alex Bell, UC-Berkeley Materials/Chemistry
* Bill Schlotter, Stanford University Materials/Chemistry
   Glenn Waychunas, LBNL (Ex Officio) Environmental/Geosciences
   Michael Brzustowicz, Stanford University Biospectroscopy
   Linda Brinen, UC San Francisco Macromolecular Crystallography
   Richard Lee, LLNL Ultrafast Science
* Graduate student

Candidate Descriptions

 

Environmental/Geosciences

Gerald Huffman is a Research Center Director and Professor at the University of Kentucky, with a joint appointment in the Departments of Chemical & Materials Engineering and Physics. He directs the Consortium for Fossil Fuel Science, a center with participants from the Universities of Kentucky, Pittsburgh, Utah, Auburn, and West Virginia. His research is focused on the conversion of coal into hydrogen and liquid transportation fuels and the investigation of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs). He has been working at SSRL since 1983, most recently on XAFS studies of HAPs (mercury, arsenic, chromium, PM2.5, etc.) produced by coal combustion.

Christopher S. Kim, Ph.D., is an 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 the exposure of undergraduate students to national synchrotron facilities.

Biospectroscopy

Robert Szilagyi is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Montana State University-Bozeman. His research interest focuses on bioinorganic, organometallic, and computational application of synchrotron radiation. He has five years of experience in XAS at various beamlines of SSRL and ALS. He uses NEXAS and EXAFS techniques in close correlation with theoretical calculations to investigate the relationships between chemical reactivity and electronic and geometric structures of bioinorganic active sites and biomimetic compounds, such as iron-sulfur clusters, S-nitrosated thiolates, as well as, tungsten, molybdenum, and palladium containing homogeneous catalysts. His motivation to be part of the SSRLUOEC is to provide a representation for junior faculty, to increase graduate and undergraduate student training, and to develop a spectral database for the community of synchrotron radiation users.

Junko Yano, Ph.D., is a staff research associate in the Physical Biosciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She has been using X-ray absorption 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. Her current interests are in the application of polarized X-ray absorption spectroscopy to single crystals. She was also involved in XRD studies using the diffraction beam lines at the PF, Japan, during her Ph.D., and she has used beam lines at the APS and ESRF.

Macromolecular Crystallography

Kenton Baker, Ph.D., is a research associate in the Structural Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA. He initially started using the Macromolecular Crystallography beamlines at SSRL while completing his Ph.D. with Ted Jardetzky in the Interdepartmental Biological Sciences Program at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. Originally coming from a physics background, Dr. Baker now pursuing structural biology research in ion channel regulation and structure using both X-ray crystallography and NMR.

Zsuzsa Hamburger, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. William Weis's laboratory at the Department of Structural Biology at Stanford University School of Medicine. She was trained as a protein crystallographer in Pamela Bjorkman's lab at Caltech, where she solved the three-dimensional crystal structure of the bacterial integrin-binding protein, invasin. Currently, she is working on determining the crystal structures of several proteins involved in exocytosis.

Stéphane Richard, Ph.D., graduated from the University Joseph Fourier in Grenoble (France) where he completed his Ph.D. studying the principles underlying adaptation to extreme saline environments using X-ray crystallography, SANS & SAXS. He then joined the team of Prof. Joseph P. Noel in the Structural Biology laboratory of the Salk Institute as a post-doc to study the biosynthesis of terpenoid natural products. He is now a Staff Scientist in Jack Skirball Chemical Biology and Proteomics center of the Salk Institute.

Graduate Student

Matthew Ginder-Vogel is a doctoral student in Dr. Scott Fendorf's Soil and Environmental Biogeochemistry Research Group in the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences at Stanford University in Stanford, CA. Matt's current research focuses on elucidating the molecular-scale interaction of metal contaminants (Cr, Tc, and U) with soil minerals and microbes, focusing on redox processes that control metal mobility in the environment. He has frequently used the SSRL MES beamlines for his research during the past four years, and looks forward to continued involvement in the synchrotron community.

Jesse Guzman is a second year UCSC graduate student doing EXAFS studies at SSRL with the Bud Bridges group. His undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan with a BS in physics allowed him close access to APS. Working at APS sector 7 from 2001 until 2004 exposed him to a variety of x-ray science techniques such as time-resolved x-ray diffraction, coherent Bragg rod x-ray diffraction of thin films, and beam-line studies. Time resolved EXAFS, EXAFS on single crystals (including transmission through manganite single crystals), and developing new x-ray techniques currently dominate his research interests.

Patrick Hillyard received a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Notre Dame and is currently a graduate student in the Department of Chemistry at Stanford University. His research interests lie in observing structural dynamics and electronic changes in chemical systems with time-resolved XAS techniques.