Invited Speakers

Dr Hans Bechtel

Advanced Light Source, Berkeley

Hans Bechtel has over 15 years of experience in spectroscopic methods and analysis. Before joining the ALS infrared beamline staff in 2007, he received his B.S. in Chemistry and Computer Science/Mathematics from Furman University, his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Stanford University, and was a postdoctoral researcher in the Spectroscopy Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has co-authored over 50 scientific papers.

Hans will address the conference on: Ultra-broadband infrared nano-spectroscopy with a synchrotron source.

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Dr Jean-Blaise Brubach

Synchrotron SOLEIL, France

Jean-Blaise Brubach, Beamline scientist at the AILES beamline of the Synchrotron SOLEIL having obtained his PhD on the dynamics of water molecules in bulk and in confined systems from the University Paris-Sud, Orsay (Essonne, France). After his PhD, he obtained a postdoctoral position at the University of Pharmacology of Châtenay Malabry (Val de Marne, France) for the society Gattefossée S.A. where he studied lipid excipient for drug targeting for drug delivery. In 2005, Jean-Blaise joined the synchrotron SOLEIL (Essonne, France) for the development and the building of the AILES beamline devoted to Infrared Spectroscopy in particular in the THz range. Since 2008, he has supported experiments on the AILES beamline at SOLEIL and has personal research activity projects in biochemistry and soft matter.

Jean-Blaise will address the conference on: Recent results on material research using the AILES Beamline.

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Paul Dumas

SOLEIL

Paul Dumas is responsible for the SMIS beamline at SOLEIL. He has been in the synchrotron field, especially exploiting the infrared radiation, since 1990. Together with Gwyn Williams and Carol Hirschmugl, he was involved, in the early 90's in surface science studies using the synchrotron infrared source at NSLS. He was initiated to microscopy by Gwyn Williams and G.L. Carr, and, soon after, was responsible for the design and construction of a synchrotron infrared micro-spectroscopy beamline at LURE (France). The facility was closed in 2003, and he was charged to design and built an infrared beamline at SOLEIL (SMIS).

His main scientific activity concerns application in biology and biomedical, high pressure research and beamline design.

Talk title in the Extreme Condition session: High Pressure Science using synchrotron infrared microscopy at the SMIS beamline (SOLEIL)

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Prof Carol Hirschmugl

University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, USA

Carol Hirschmugl is a Professor of Physics at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, having obtained degrees from SUNY StonyBrook and Yale University. She has been an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow at the Fritz Haber Institute der Max Planck Gesellschaft, and a University of California Presidential postdoctoral fellow at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She has pioneered the use of synchrotron based infrared sources for a variety of applications, spending time at the National Synchrotron Light Source (Brookhaven, NY), Advanced Light Source (Berkeley, CA), Synchrotron Radiation Center (Stoughton, WI), ANKA (Karlsruhe, Germany) and European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (Grenoble, France). In particular, her developments have led to using these bright sources for reflection absorption IR spectroscopy to study adsorbate/substrate interactions, and most recently, high definition wide-field infrared imaging at a new NSF-MRI funded facility at the SRC that is called IRENI (Infrared ENvironmental Imaging).

Carol will address the conference on: Three dimensional spectral imaging with synchrotron FTIR spectro-micro-tomography.

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Yao-Chang Lee

National Synchrotron Research Center

Yao-Chang Lee, Beamline scientist at the BL14A1 beamline of National Synchrotron Research Center received his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. He focuses on development of innovative method using multi-cancer marker for early cancer detection by employing FTIR-based imaging method as his joining NSRRC of Taiwan in 2004. Recently, he has successfully demonstrated novel cancer screening method based on the variance of membrane glycoconjugates, wax physisorption kinetics (WPK) of FTIR imaging method, for screening colorectal cancer, oral cavity cancer, gastric cancer, cervical cancer, prostate cancer, and sarcoma. With the help of fast screening method of WPK, he is further working on the Electric-field-assisted WPK for grading cancers to establish digital cancer grade system for providing useful information to further cancer treatment. Moreover, he also exerts the effort to establish novel cancer therapy using infrared spectral tip for improving the efficiency of treating cancer using alternative electric field.

Presentation title under the biomedical applications 1 session: An innovative study of electrostatically-assisted Wax Physisorption Kinetics for Grading Oral Cavity Cancer using Synchrotron-based FT-IR Imaging

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Emeline Pouyet

ESRF, France

Emeline Pouyet is a Ph.D. student at the ID21 beamline at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (Grenoble, France). She received her M.S. Degree in Archeometry in 2010 with a project focused on the study of ancient glassmaking processes. At the ID21 beamline, her current activity aims at providing an efficient combination of synchrotron based techniques: Infrared and X-Rays micro-spectroscopy, for the study of artistic paintings prepared as thin section. As Infrared and X-Rays based techniques offer complementary information, the achievement of molecular, elemental and structural characterization on a single complex and heterogeneous sample is a real asset in the Cultural Heritage field. In this context, the interests and challenges of such a combination are evaluated. An important part of her research is focused on optimizing thin section preparation: one of the objectives is to limit any analytical interferences from external materials, in particular for Infrared spectroscopy. Moreover, new technical developments are implemented with a particular focus on full-field approach giving full 2D information.

Emeline will address the conference on: Cultural Heritage applications at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility.

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Dr Evan Robertson

La Trobe University, Australia

Dr Evan Robertson qualified for his PhD at Monash University, working with Prof. Don McNaughton in the area of high resolution FTIR spectroscopy from 1993-1995. He then worked as a post-doctoral researcher in laser spectroscopy with Prof John Simons at the University of Oxford from 1996-2000. In 2001, he returned to the School of Chemistry at Monash University to take up simultaneous Logan and ARC research fellowships, which was followed by a lectureship from 2006. In 2009, he moved to La Trobe University where he leads a research group in optical spectroscopy manifested in two major areas: (1) laser-based spectroscopy directed towards understanding gas phase conformation and clusters of biomolecules; and (2) FTIR spectroscopy relevant to planetary atmospheric and interstellar chemistry. His research has led to over 80 journal publications, and is supported by ARC grants, the Australian Synchrotron and National Computing Infrastructure.

Evan will address the conference on: Aerosol nanoparticles and the Far-side of IR spectroscopy.

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Prof Peter Weightman

University of Liverpool, UK

Peter Weightman is a surface scientist whose initial research focussed on studies of the electronic structure of materials using a variety of laboratory and synchrotron techniques. In particular he developed and applied the techniques of Auger spectroscopy and Reflection Anisotropy Spectroscopy. He played a leading role in establishing the Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Surface Science in Liverpool and became its Director in 1998. He has been an active proponent of the case for a new UK light source, chairing the scientific committee of the 4GLS proposal and developing the biological case for the NLS proposal. Together with Elaine Seddon and Wendy Flavell he achieved funding for a prototype accelerator, ALICE, at Daresbury which is now operating. He constructed and commissioned a terahertz beamline on ALICE and has recently commissioned a scanning near field optical microscope (SNOM) on the infrared free electron laser on ALICE. Peter is using the terahertz beamline [1] and SNOM [2] in studies of biological systems.

Peter will be addressing the conference on: The Daresbury ALICE accelerator and research on the ALICE THz and infrared beamlines.

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Gwyn P. Williams

Deputy Director of the Free Electron Laser facility at Jefferson Lab

Gwyn P. Williams is the Deputy Director of the Free Electron Laser facility at Jefferson Lab, and manages the lab's research programs in photon science. He has co-authored 260 research publications and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Gwyn was born in England, and has spent all 42 years of his career using synchrotron radiation, first at Daresbury Lab in England, then at Tantalus in Wisconsin, then Brookhaven National Lab in New York, and, for the past 13 years, at Jefferson Lab. Gwyn's research has used particle accelerators as light sources to help understand the fundamental physical behaviour of materials and surfaces. He was the 1990 recipient of an R&D 100 Award for developing a wavefront dividing interferometer for use with such sources. His research has motivated a lifelong parallel development of these ultra-bright light sources as probes, the main focus being in the infrared spectral region. Gwyn currently serves on a number of scientific advisory committees for large facilities around the world. He was on the editorial board of Synchrotron Radiation News for 25 years and is currently a reviewer for Nature, Physical Review and Physical Review Letters.

The topic of his talk will be "40 Years at the NSLS - an IR Footpath to WIRMS 2013".

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