Message from Horst Simon
Dear colleagues: As you may have already learned, we are lucky to have Carol Burns, who is currently Executive Officer to the Deputy Director for Science, Technology, and Engineering at Los Alamos National Laboratory, step into my roles as Deputy Lab Director for Research and Chief Research Officer later this summer. You can learn more about Carol’s deep scientific and leadership experience here. Carol will join the Lab on August 1; please join me in welcoming her. At the last Town Hall, Director Witherell introduced our Lab core values—team science, service, trust, innovation, and respect—to our community. These values were unveiled recently, but these ideals have been the foundation of our culture and the success of our mission for many decades. Below you will read about how we are practicing respect for what each member of our community brings to the Lab, by incorporating IDEA principles into our senior scientist promotion process. You will notice our efforts to lead and support open data initiatives; this is just one way we practice team science and service to our community. We are also supporting team science through our new Thursday Science Forums, which we hope will help support information sharing and collaboration across Areas at the Lab. Trust is another of our longstanding core values. Our safety record is an important part of our contract with the DOE and our partners; over time, we earn their trust when we follow safe practices in everything that we do. Read below about our new safety hub, which offers reminders on how to be safe in our work. You will also read about how we serve and respect our community through the different internship and fellowship opportunities we offer to young scientists. And I encourage you to sharpen your innovation skills by watching the video of Vanessa Z. Chan, DOE’s Chief Commercialization Officer. She has great insights about innovation and risk-taking. I hope you will continue to seek ways to practice our core values as you go about your daily work. These values are what make the Lab what it is today. You can learn more at stewardship.lbl.gov. Horst Simon |
Carol J. Burns Named Deputy Director for Research for Berkeley Lab
Carol J. Burns has been named Deputy Lab Director for Research and Chief Research Officer for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, effective August 1. She will replace Deputy Lab Director for Research Horst Simon, who announced his plans to step down from his position last August. Burns brings more than 25 years of scientific leadership experience in a national laboratory setting. In prior roles at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), she managed organizations conducting work from very early-stage research to operational programs. In her most recent role as Executive Officer to the Deputy Director for Science, Technology, and Engineering, she helped oversee research and programmatic efforts in Chemistry, Earth and Life Sciences, Global Security, Physical Sciences, and Simulation and Computation. Read the announcement. Lab Staff Committee Incorporates IDEA Principles into Senior Scientist Promotion Process IDEA principles are critical to the Lab’s success. To further integrate these principles into the Lab’s leadership development process, the Lab Staff Committee (LSC) chairs have worked with the Lab’s Chief Diversity Officer and subject matter experts to ensure that the senior scientist promotion processes incorporate IDEA principles. The group has made two recommendations that are being taken up:
For more information, contact Career Pathways Office Program Manager Meg Rodriguez, LSC Chair Roderick Clark, or Co-Chair Frances Houle. Berkeley Lab Leads Four Open Data Projects for DOE’s PuRe Program The DOE’s Office of Science (SC) has made available Public Reusable Research (PuRe) Data Resources. These are data repositories, knowledge bases, analysis platforms, and other activities that make data publicly available in order to advance scientific and technical knowledge. Of the six resources listed on the PuRe Data Resources website, four are led by Berkeley Lab:
Supporting and contributing to open data continues to be an important component of the Lab’s mission. For more information about the Lab’s research data policies, contact Joerg Heber. Lab Postdocs to Attend Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting Congratulations to Lindsay Bassman (CSA), Marlene Turner (PSA), and Michael Whittaker (EESA) for being selected as participants in this year’s Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, as part of a UC program. They will attend virtual lectures and discussions this summer with 40 Nobel laureates around the world. Hear what they are most looking forward to. DOE’s Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) Program The DOE’s Office of Science has selected 78 graduate students in this year’s Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program. Ten students will be hosted by Berkeley Lab, starting June 14, 2021 through September 14, 2022; the duration of their research projects range from three to 12 months. They will receive world-class training and access to state-of-the-art facilities and resources at the Lab. Awardees were selected from a diverse pool of graduate applicants from institutions around the country. Selection was based on merit peer review by external scientific experts. In this cohort of awardees, more than 19% attend minority serving institutions. View the list of students hosted by Berkeley Lab and the complete list of awardees. Summer Brings Fellows and Students to the Lab Cal Energy Corps 2021 participants, clockwise from top left: Namita Chandra, Hunter Ocker, Daniela Paredes Robles, Jin Yu, Nicholas Solan, Abishek Roy With summer getting underway, the Lab is welcoming new fellows and interns to the Lab. The Berkeley Bridge Graduate Summer Fellowship (Bridge Fellowship) is an eight-week graduate student summer program designed to engage top UC Berkeley graduate students in active research roles at Berkeley Lab. This year’s fellows are: Gabriel Colón-Reyes, Luis Rangel DaCosta, Tristan Gilbert, and Jerome Quenum. For more information, contact Meg Rodriguez. Cal Energy Corps is a program for UC Berkeley undergraduate students interested in the design, development, and delivery of sustainable energy and climate solutions. Heading to the Lab this summer are: Namita Chandra, Hunter Ocker, Daniela Paredes Robles, Abhishek Roy, Nicholas Solan, and Jin Yu. For more information, contact Darren Ho. The Earth and Environmental Sciences Area is also working with future scientists and engineers from under-represented communities through the Pathbreaker Program, a Berkeley Lab internship program in partnership with Cal State University East Bay (CSUEB). The program engages master’s-level students from the nation’s fifth most diverse university. Starting this August, three students, Abbas Jalili, Fnu Sharmila Bolikoppa Palakshappa, and Julie Shahan, will participate in year-long research projects with EESA scientists. For more information, contact Susan Hubbard. Outreach programs like the above are vital to training tomorrow’s scientists and engineers, as well as building and retaining a diverse workforce. Safety Resources Hub The Lab has launched a centralized safety information website at safetyhub.lbl.gov (you can also find the Safety Hub via the Lab’s A-Z index). It is a comprehensive site for employees to find resources, contact lists, and videos related to safety, and it includes tips for safety in laboratory settings. Bookmark this site for use throughout your workday. DOE’s Vanessa Z. Chan on Innovation What does innovation look like? How do you make space for innovation and encourage it? How do you practice it? IPO’s Gregg Scharfstein recently posed these and other questions to Vanessa Chan, the DOE’s Chief Commercialization Officer. Watch this video to hear her answers. (54:19) UC Berkeley Bakar BioEnginuity Hub Offers Startup Space and Services UC Berkeley has launched the Bakar BioEnginuity Hub to provide scientists with the intellectual, entrepreneurial, and community resources needed to learn and then to launch their own ventures. The 40,000-square-foot hub is focused on people working at the convergence of the life sciences with the physical, engineering, and data sciences. Located at Woo Hon Fai Hall on the UC Berkeley campus, the hub will open this fall, and will rent space to science-based startups, as well as provide campus programs and connections with potential investors and mentors, for scholars and researchers. Applications for Bakar Labs are now being accepted. COVID-19 Technical Assistance Program (CTAP) to Enable and Fund Partnerships for Lab Researchers CTAP, sponsored by DOE’s Office of Technology Transitions (OTT), was originally designed to provide technical support funding to combat the coronavirus pandemic. Berkeley Lab has been one of the most active national lab participants in this important effort since last year and has developed innovative new partnerships to combat the pandemic. OTT is now increasing its scope to provide funding to national labs working with external partners to mitigate the economic downturn resulting from the pandemic. This new version of the program, CTAP 2.0, is a great opportunity for external partners to benefit the Lab’s resources and expertise. Find out more about both funding opportunities. New Funding Proposal Requirement from DOE and Late Submissions Form from SPO Strategic Partnerships Office (SPO) would like to make researchers and other staff aware of the following items to help make funding proposals more successful: Contact your Resource Analyst and Gail Chen in SPO as soon as possible if you see the following new SC-42 requirement in the eligibility section of a FOA or Lab Call you’re interested in: In addition to the cognizant Contracting Officer, Office of Science laboratories are required to provide written authorization from the Director of Laboratory Policy (SC-42) with the application in order to be eligible to apply for funding under this FOA. Your Resource Analyst and Gail will facilitate getting these authorizations if you let them know in a timely manner and if you’ve carefully read the entire FOA. SPO requires five business days to review and submit proposals to non-DOE external entities on your behalf, to ensure everything is in order and manage workflow. SPO has recently seen a high number of exception requests to this policy from PIs, which puts their proposal at risk in case something is missing or there are bandwidth constraints. To help manage this process SPO has a new web form for any late submissions outside the normal five-day turnaround time, to determine whether an exception will be granted and the submission accepted. The form can also be found on the SPO intranet. Please contact Gail Chen with any feedback or suggestions. Thursday Science Forums at the Lab The Lab has launched small group weekly forums to share research ideas, plans, and early results for specific research areas and initiatives at the Lab. The forums will focus on the following topics:
On the occasional fifth Thursdays, special topics will be organized. There are currently no science forums on the first Thursday of the month. Attendance is by invitation only; interested staff should reach out to the contacts listed above. |