Careers in STEM – Lightsources.org

Diamond launches major recruitment campaign at AAAS

2023/03/032023/03/06

Coinciding with Women’s History Month, and in the lead up to International Women’s Day, four of Diamond’s STEM champions launch a new recruitment drive

Today, at the prestigious AAAS science conference in Washington DC, Diamond will unveil plans for its biggest recruitment campaign since its inception 20 years ago. Dozens of new roles will be available in the coming year and some examples of the variety of STEM careers will be showcased and celebrated by an all-women lineup from the Diamond team. This recruitment drive aims to ensure the facility has the knowledge and expertise required to help plan and deliver world leading science for the next decade and beyond.

In the lead-up to International Women’s Day (8^th March), Diamond’s workshop will shine a light on career pathways in world-changing science. A panel of four women from Diamond will address how their work across science and engineering helps to address 21^st century challenges from energy research to pandemic preparedness. They will share their professional journeys and insights into their roles. Job roles range from scientists, engineers, software experts, technicians to professional roles all essential to enabling the most brilliant science performed by scientists at Diamond.

Through part of the next decade, Diamond will deliver an upgrade programme called Diamond-II. To continue delivering the world-changing science that Diamond leads and enables, Diamond-II is a project that will deliver a new machine and new beamlines with a comprehensive series of upgrades to optics, detectors, sample environments, sample delivery capabilities and computing.

Details on the panel:

The workshop panel will feature Dr Lorraine Bobb – Head of Diagnostics Group; Sarah Macdonell – Head of Beamline Systems Engineering; Dr Chidinma Okolo – Beamline Scientist at B24 and Dr Lucy Saunders – Beamline Scientist at I11. It will be chaired by Isabelle Boscaro-Clarke – Head of Impact, Communications and Engagement, with an interactive Q&A session facilitated by Molly Pekarik Fry – Web and Digital Content Manager.

Read more on the Diamond website

Image: L to R the Diamond Light Source Panel : Dr Chidinma Okolo – Beamline Scientist at B24; Molly Pekarik Fry – Web and Digital Content Manager, Sarah Macdonell – Head of Beamline Systems Engineering; Isabelle Boscaro-Clarke – Head of Impact, Communications and Engagement; Dr Lorraine Bobb – Head of Diagnostics Group; Dr Lucy Saunders – Beamline Scientist at I11

Lightsources.org holds first collaboration meeting since the pandemic

2023/03/012023/03/03

This week, science communicators from the across the US, Europe and Asia met in person in Washington DC for the first time since 2019. The two day collaboration meeting involved discussion on a range of topics including coordinating remote access and open data discussions at a global level, measuring the impact of the work that is done at light sources, and how to navigate and successfully move forward with social media.

Isabelle Boscaro-Clarke, Diamond’s Head of Impact, Communication and Engagement, comments “After 19 years of working together to create one voice for the brightest science, the lightsources.org collaboration is proud to now have 24 members from across the world. We had the privilege to visit the White House yesterday before meeting at the University of California’s Washington Center. The British Embassy in Washington DC hosted Day 2 of our annual meeting and we were delighted to welcome Dava Keavney (Program Manager for X-ray Light Sources at U.S. Department of Energy – Scientific User Facilities), Branden Brough (Director, National Nanotechnology Coordination Office), Quinn Spadola (Deputy Director, National Nanotechnology Coordination Office) and Matthew Diasio (Science and Innovation Policy Advisor Science and Innovation Policy Advisor Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office), to join our discussions and help us explore new ways to reach our target audiences. As a collaboration, we are very grateful to everyone who supports light source science as our work is key to help address 21st century global challenge…together for a better world!”

Silvana Westbury, Project Manager for Lightsources.org, adds “In my role, I have the privilege of working with science communications colleagues from around the global light source community. Meeting in person has been hugely valuable as we have been able to bounce ideas off each other and devote quality time to sharing best practice and supporting members who need help in a specific areas of science communication.”

Lightsources.org is also attending the AAAS Meeting in Washington (2 – 5 March 2023) and has a booth with Diamond Light Source, the UK’s synchrotron science facility, and ExPaNDS, the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) Photon and Neutron Data Service.

Career opportunities are currently plentiful within facilities around the world, particularly those who are planning their upgrade projects. For those who are attending the AAAS Meeting, in person or online, details of Diamond’s workshop featuring women who have succeeded in STEM careers can be found here

Synchrotron science through board games!

2022/07/012022/07/21

Learning how to communicate your science is an essential part of any scientist’s career. Whether for an interview, a presentation or for sharing your latest research with family and friends, there are many routes to explore. However, have you ever considered a board game…?

It is definitely an unusual form of public engagement, but it is one that has been an incredibly rewarding experience for us all. The ‘we’ here is Mark Basham, Claire Murray (both from Diamond Light Source) and Matthew Dunstan (University of Cambridge), who had never worked together before this project. However, we quickly became good friends and collaborators in the process of creating our board game to engage teenagers in the life of a scientist and in STEM careers. The game is based on the floor plan of Diamond Light Source and every experiment is one that has been carried out there. We playtested our game with lots of family and friends before taking it to our target audience – teenagers between 12-18 who may not be aware of the full variety of careers in STEM available to them. We learned so much that we have actually just published a paper sharing the design process, evaluation and results and our approach to inclusive design. Check out the Diamond website to learn more about it!

Photon Science: A career of creativity & intriguing questions awaits

2021/11/252021/11/25

Markus Ilchen is a physicist at FLASH, the world’s first short wavelength free-electron laser. FLASH is located at DESY in Hamburg. The DESY campus is a ‘small city’ of science offering a versatile and vibrant culture for a wide variety of professions and scientific disciplines. In his #LightSourceSelfie, Markus gives you a peek into some of the highlights on campus, describing some of its history and how FLASH’s unique capabilities will help him to study the chirality (handedness) of molecules. Contributing to solving the mystery behind what chirality does in our universe, drives him and his colleagues.

For those starting out in photon science, Markus has this advice, “Enjoy the great choice! But still of course find your sweet spot. Find your place where you have fun; where you can be yourself; where you can work with nice people; where you are working on intriguing questions; where you can be creative and enjoy the freedom of science in a way that, for one, it keeps you up at night but in a good way.”

#LightSourceSelfies Monday Montage – Learning

2021/11/152022/05/23

This #MontageMontage features Kathryn Janzen from the Canadian Light Source (CLS), Nina Vyas and Nina Perry from Diamond Light Source, and Aerial Murphy-Leonard, who conducts experiments at CHESS. Learning through experience is the best way when it comes to experiments at synchrotrons and Free Electron Lasers. As Nina Vyas reflects, “It is very nice to learn new things and its quite easy to pick up lots of new skills in science.”