#LightSourceSelfie – Lightsources.org

Community does us proud on #LightSourceSelfiesDay2024

2024/05/232024/10/04

Inspired by our #LightSourceSelfies video campaign (featured here on our website) we invited everyone with a passion for light source science to join our #LightSourceSelfiesDay on Monday 20^th May 2024. This special day succeeded in lighting up social media with images that showed the wide range of places, people, technology, and world-changing science that makes up our amazing community.

Huge thanks to all those who participated. We look forward to repeating this activity in 2025. In the meantime, keep sharing your selfies and tagging us at #Happy20Lightsources and #LightSourceSelfiesDay2024.

2024 marks 20 years of Lightsources.org!

2024/01/102024/01/11

Our global collaboration of light source communicators was formed back in 2004 to provide one voice for the brightest science.

To celebrate our 20^th Anniversary, we invite everyone with a passion for light source science to join our #LightSourceSelfiesDay on Monday 20.05.2024.

On 20th May, light up social media with photos that show the wide range of places, people, technology, and world changing science that make up our amazing community. Let’s see how many different images we can share in a single day!

You could be working at a synchrotron or free electron laser; preparing samples in your home laboratory; gathering samples from out in the field; travelling to a light source, relaxing after a hectic period of beamtime; participating in public engagement; or learning about light sources at your school or university.

The possibilities are endless. Creativity and teamwork are encouraged!

Tag us with:

#LightSourceSelfiesDay2024

#Happy20Lightsources

Find us at:

LinkedIn lightsources.org

Instagram lightsources_org

X @lightsources

This celebration is just one of a number of special activities we have planned for 2024. Keep an eye on our website, newsletter and social media for more details.

Supporting the light source community is a wonderful honour and we thank all our amazing members for the brilliant support they give us. Find out more about them here. Their engagement means we can bring you hot off the press news, job opportunities, event details, proposal deadlines and much more. It also enables us to attend conferences and facility events to meet people face to face, spread the word about Lightsources.org and find new ways to encourage and support those who are in the early stages of their light source career journeys’.

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Image: The way we were! The Lightsources.org home page shortly after its launch in 2005

Surviving night shifts!

2023/12/202023/12/20

Light sources take on a different atmosphere during the night. Researchers develop their own strategies for surviving experiments that require them to be on a beamline when they would normally be fast asleep! We round off 2023 by sharing top tips from scientists from the Swiss Light Source, LCLS, Diamond and NSLS-II.

International Day of Light #LightSourceSelfie special from the SLS

2023/05/162023/11/09

A community driven by curiosity!

To celebrate International Day of Light 2023, we bring you a #LightSourceSelfies special (see below) from Ludmila Leroy, a postdoc at the Swiss Light Source (SLS), which is located at the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI) in Villigen, Switzerland. With an energy of 2.4 GeV, the SLS provides photon beams of high brightness for research in materials science, biology and chemistry.

Ludmila, who is from Brazil, is studying the properties of magnetic materials. She highlights the versatility of light sources as hugely advantageous to science and learning from, and about, nature. “We are all driven by curiosity and these versatile facilities gives us the ability to try different approaches and push the boundaries in our experiments.” Looking back on her career to date, Ludmila would advise her younger self “not to be scared to reach out for the world” as there are many light sources facilities around the globe and travelling to different countries is an exciting part of being a scientist.

As with all light sources, the SLS operates around the clock and Ludmila has a new take on making night shifts more bearable. Throughout the #LightSourceSelfie campaign, most participants have mentioned coffee, chocolate or candy when talking about night shift survival strategies. For Ludmila, night shifts are more bearable when she eats healthily and makes sure that she keeps hydrated.

And when she is not at a light source….Ludmila is in charge of the Music Club at PSI, which brings together a mixture of PhD students, postdocs, technicians and staff scientists. The PSIchedelics is just one of the society’s musical entertainment offerings. Ludmila plays the bass and sings in this band and her #LightSourceSelfie ends with a fantastic clip of them in action. You can find out more about music at PSI here: Music at PSI | Our Research | Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI)