How did you get excited by science & expertise?
It’s the traditional story of a child getting a microscope as a gift when he’s 10. I studied chemistry in Italy, the place you select your main early and stick with it. For 5 years it was all math, physics and chemistry. I began a doctorate in bodily chemistry on the University of Rome and was awarded a one-year fellowship on the University of California, Berkeley, within the supplies science division. That fellowship become a PhD, and 30 years later, I’m nonetheless right here! I did my PhD analysis at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The National Ignition Facility, NIF, was being constructed, they usually needed to grasp why their excessive depth lasers have been damaging the lenses they used to focus the beam – that was my PhD venture. After doing a postdoc on the subject of printed electronics at Xerox in Palo Alto, I joined Stanford as assistant professor in 2006, grew to become a full professor in 2019 and a division chair shortly thereafter, which I did for six years till June 2025 when my job at SLAC totally ramped up.
What questions are you exploring now as a scientist?
My group works on utilizing polymer or plastic-like molecules in issues that plastics aren’t recognized for. When you consider plastics, you consider static issues like bottles. But the molecules we work with are energetic; they will emit mild or transmit electrical energy. Plastics are simple to course of in comparison with typical digital supplies, and they’re very versatile – you possibly can think about making digital skins for robots, for instance. We examine basic questions on these supplies, reminiscent of how their molecules are assembled and the way they transmit electrical energy. These supplies will also be tailor-made to sense explicit chemical substances. And lately we have additionally been engaged on utilizing them to imitate how the mind works, making what are known as synthetic neurons, or synthetic synapses. The mind may be very environment friendly at computing, so can we get the identical effectivity out of digital units that exhibit the identical performance as neurons and synapses? We use X-rays at SLAC’s Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, SSRL, to discover these questions.
So you’ve been utilizing SLAC amenities for your science for a while?
Oh, sure, since I first began at Stanford. In truth, I simply bought a textual content from my college students telling us when our subsequent beamtime is at Beam Line 11.3. My very first summer time as Stanford college, I used to be coaching a pupil on the way to use the beamline. Now my college students are very cautious to maintain me away from scientific devices in order that I gained’t randomly push any buttons. [laughs] I bear in mind once I was an undergrad and my advisor would come into the lab and push random buttons – simply being a scientist!
What would you say is your science superpower?
I’d say it’s two issues: my consideration to element – having the ability to see issues within the information – and connecting issues that don’t appear linked at first. I can maintain the massive image and zoom out and in. For instance, I not too long ago requested a pupil to ship me two microscopic photographs of the identical space taken underneath two totally different situations, and I observed a peculiarity of that picture that tells us one thing about how these polymers are linked. So, I suppose I may say that I nonetheless have that zooming-in means, although I haven’t got as a lot time to dedicate to it. Lately, I’ve been studying as a lot as I can about SLAC, visiting all of the lab’s locations, initiatives and folks and absorbing as many particulars as I can.
What conjures up you about SLAC science and expertise?
All of it! I don’t have a background in cosmology, however I used to be lucky to hitch SLAC simply earlier than the celebration of Rubin Observatory’s First Look, and how are you going to not be enthusiastic about Rubin science? The lab has an unimaginable breadth of science and expertise, however one good connecting thread is the huge quantity of knowledge we accumulate throughout the lab and the problem of storing and processing that information. It’s true for each Rubin and our mild sources. And then there’s a singular tradition at SLAC – the lab’s historical past and folks – that permeates the place. I see how passionate persons are about working right here and the science they do. People are excited to return to work, and I’m excited to be right here, too.
What instructions do you see the lab moving into? What are the principle issues we are able to clear up?
We are tackling many fascinating issues at SLAC, from the origin of the universe to the habits of atoms and molecules. One of my major duties is to create an built-in science and expertise technique, and I see our potential to be the lab that brings an understanding of how a fabric works from the smallest, quickest scales – the motions of electrons – to the failure of the gadget. If we are able to combine throughout our instruments and folks on the lab and college, we are able to discover basic questions on supplies from very quick to human time scales and from very small to human size scales. I feel we may very well be the one lab on the earth that may do this as a result of only a few universities and nationwide labs have that mixture of instruments, like our mild sources, and individuals who examine questions starting from basic science to application-based engineering. And, after all, we’re in a broader ecosystem of nationwide labs and innovators within the Bay Area. I inform my college students to take a look at a map – inside a two-hour drive you’ll find a world-leading skilled on any matter. The key’s to combine all that and get researchers the instruments they should reply any basic query.
We are listening to so much about how AI is poised to revolutionize society. Do you see a job for SLAC in that?
AI permeates all the things on the lab. We’re in all probability producing the most important quantity of knowledge of any nationwide lab, when you mix Rubin Observatory and the Linac Coherent Light Source, LCLS. And that’s a singular alternative for us to steer within the AI-for-science house. We’re not a number one computing lab per se, however we’re an experimental lab that produces distinctive information units that can be utilized to coach AI and to determine the way to automate experiments. That’s an enormous alternative for us and makes us fairly distinctive. AI fashions developed for science can even drive advances in applied sciences reminiscent of fusion and quantum computing.
As deputy for science and expertise and CRO, what does your crew appear to be? Are there any focus areas that stand out to you?
I’m bringing collectively a number of areas, reminiscent of strategic planning, tech switch and strategic partnerships, and analysis safety. Another focus is profession improvement – early profession applications, but in addition a pipeline of applications to assist individuals all through their careers with mentorship and coaching. I’d wish to create one thing much like the Stanford system of transitioning postdocs to profession roles however tailor-made to the nationwide lab setting. There are plenty of alternatives to assist particular person contributors in turning into leaders and managers. I’d additionally wish to strengthen and develop our partnerships with the DOE and Stanford by advocating for the worth of these connections. I’ve benefited from them in my very own work on campus and at SSRL, so I can communicate to the potential of these relationships.
SSRL and LCLS are DOE Office of Science consumer amenities. NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory is a joint initiative of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science (DOE/SC).
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