Last week, Lightsources.org travelled to Hamburg to be part of one of the community’s most popular events, the Synchrotron Radiation Instrumentation (SRI) conference. The SRI conference is regarded as the world’s most important exchange forum for experimenters, developers and operators of large X-ray radiation sources.
SRI2024 was organised by DESY and the European XFEL and attracted over 1000 experts from all over the world. The conference gave Lightsources.org the perfect opportunity to celebrate its 20th Anniversary with scientists and technical experts from facilities, academic institutes and companies within the international light source community.
As a collaboration of science communicators, Lightsources.org organised a series of events and activities aimed at raising the profile of its members, which include 24 synchrotrons and 8 Free Electron Lasers. An additional focus involved recognising the science and science communication talents of conference attendees through two poster prize competitions.
Isabelle Boscaro-Clarke, Head of Communications, Engagement and Impact at Diamond and Vice-Chair of Lightsources.org, comments, “It was a real honour for Lightsources.org to be part of this wonderful conference. Our collaboration of science communicators exists to provide one voice for the light source community. It was inspiring to meet so many delegates and exhibitors who share our passion for these amazing facilities and the incredible science they deliver.”
Lightsources.org is particularly keen to support early career professionals and, to support this goal, two lunchtime sessions were offered during the conference. The session on Wednesday, which was chaired by Isabelle Boscaro-Clarke, focused on career insights and development with a panel of senior leaders including Gianluigi Botton, Diamond Light Source, Sakura Pascarelli, the European XFEL, Britta Redlich, HFML – FELIX and LEAPS, Laurent Chapon, Argonne (APS) and Gerd Materlik, UCL.
The second session on Thursday put the spotlight on science communication and gave participants the opportunity to practice and develop their communication skills. Attendees were supported by science communicators including Silvana Westbury, Lightsources.org, Isabelle Boscaro-Clarke, Diamond/Lightsources.org, Cindy Lee and Andrea Taylor, Berkeley ( ALS) and Synchrotron Radiation News, Miriam Arrell, the Paul Scherrer Institute (SLS / Swiss FEL) and Florentine Krawatzek,Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (BESSY II). During the session, attendees were given a series of tips to support them with their science communication journeys. The facilitators also highlighted the fact that getting involved in science communication is a great way to support professional career development through transferable skills. When individuals find the right kind of science communication for them, it also adds an extra element of fun to their professional life.
Credit: Lightsources.org
During the poster sessions, Lightsources.org organised the judging of posters that had been entered into the science and science communication poster prize competitions. Christian Schroer from DESY and Andy Dent from Diamond judged the SRI 2024 Science Poster Prize, while Cindy Lee from Berkeley Lab (ALS) and Miriam Arrell from Paul Scherrer Institute (SLS / SwissFEL) judged the SRI 2024 Science Communication Poster Prize, which was in memoriam to Till Mundzeck.
The Prize Award Session took place on Friday afternoon and the following winners were announced:
SRI 2024 Science Poster Prize
The first prize went to Renan Ramalho Geraldes from Sirius at the Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS) for the poster “The Loading Chamber of the SAPOTI Cryogenic Nanoprobe at the CARNAUBA Beamline at Sirius/LNLS”.
Judges comments, “Outstanding development of cryogenic stage and sample exchange for nano imaging which has wide applicability to other facilities.”
The second prize was given to Tang Li from DESY for the poster “Real-life challenges of single-beam ptychography vs. multi-beam ptychography”.
Judges comments, “Clever use of a mask and analysis to generate multi-beams to enable “parallel” ptychography to image larger areas.”
The third prize went to Jan Lukas Dresselhaus from the Hamburg Centre for Ultrafast Imaging for the poster with the title “Aberration corrected multilayer Laue lenses enable focusing to below 3 nanometres”.
Judges comments, “Further application of calculating and using an array of refractive phase correctors to improve the focus from MLL’s.”
Credit: European XFEL, Frank Poppe
Honourable mentions went to:
Amna Majid Fault detection in Ion Pumps at the European XFEL
Judges comments, “Very nice presentation and useful use of AI for detection of ion-pump failures with wide applicability”
Dawit Hailu ForwardGAN, an Unsupervised Forward Operator-based Generative Adversarial Network for solving Inverse Problems: The the Near-Field Phase Retrieval Problem
Judges comments, “Helpful work showing how a Generative Network can be used to solve the phase retrieval problem with limited data.”
Qais Saadeh Optical Constants Determination for Soft X-ray/EUV Optics: Refined Optical Data for Rhodium
Judges comments, “Very information poster on new measurements on the Rh optical constants in VUV range which are highly relevant to the silicon manufacturing industry.”
Zeynep Reyhan Öztürk TXPES – A new soft X-ray spectroscopy beamline at the SESAME synchrotron
Judges comments, “Poster showing the excellent design for the new Turkish beamline to be built at Sesame.”
SRI 2024 Science Communication Poster Prize (in memoriam Till Mundzeck)
Jan Lukas Dresselhaus also won the Science Communication Poster Prize. The second prize was given to Amna Majid from European XFEL for the poster with the title “Fault detection in Ion Pumps at the European XFEL”. And the third prize went to David Meier from Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin for his poster with the title “Offset finding of beamline parameters on the METRIXS beamline at BESSY II”. The SRI 2024 Science Communication Poster Prize (Public voting) was awarded to Emmanuel Aneke (APS) for the poster “Simulation and Measurement of Horizontal Emittance via Undulator High Harmonics at the APS-U”.
Honourable mentions went to:
Sonal Ramesh Patel (Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin)
Rafael Celestre (Soleil)
Ibrahym Dourki (EuXFEL)
Emmanuel Aneke (Argonne)
Dawit Hailu (Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon)
Judges comments:
We are so pleased with the entries in the science communication contest. First, it takes courage to put yourself forward, particularly when communication has not been part of traditional academic training in sciences. Second, we saw a lot of good poster designs and heard a lot of great communication strategies in the presentations over the past three days. You all have a lot to be proud of.
Some highlights included:
-font size and color choices that allowed us to easily read the text
-creative use of white space and graphics
-clear visual and verbal markers that helped us to orientate ourselves
– a clear outline of the big picture
– when participants checked in with us to see if we were following
– clever use of humour and analogies that brought the science alive.
Both poster judges, Cindy Lee and Miriam Arrell, would be happy to stay in touch and offer critique. You can contact them via email at cindylee@lbl.gov and miriam.arrell@psi.ch. To help refresh their memories, please include a photo of yourself as well as your poster. That way, they can remember your presentation and offer specific feedback on your poster.
The SRI 2024 Science Communication Poster Prize honours Till Mundzeck, who was an inspiring science communicator and author of books, who worked within DESY’s public relations team in Hamburg. He was a highly valued member of the Lightsources.org collaboration until he died recently. Till’s enthusiasm for good science and communication was infectious.
Jumpei Yamada from Osaka University, Japan, and Agostino Marinelli from the National Accelerator Laboratory SLAC, USA, were honoured for their important contributions to advance research using free electron X-ray lasers.
FELs of Europe Award
Jumpei Yamada of Osaka University, Japan, was awarded with the FELs of Europe Award for his work on “Ultimate focusing of X-ray free-electron laser down to 7×7 nm spot for achieving 1022 W/cm2 intensity”. Free electron lasers are machines where accelerated electrons are jointly forced to emit a very brilliant light. Particularly, the emitted X-ray light has developed into a unique tool for research: Scientists from all over the world use this extremely brilliant light for their research: from medical research to nanotechnology.
Kai-Siegbahn-Prize 2024
Agostino Marinelli of the National Accelerator Laboratory SLAC, U.S., was awarded with the “Kai-Siegbahn-Prize 2024” for his pioneering development of attosecond X-ray free electron lasers and their application to ultrafast X-ray science at the Linac Coherent Light Source at SLAC. The prize was established in 2009 in honour of Kai Siegbahn, the physics Nobel Prize winner 1981 and founder of the journal “Nuclear Instruments and Methods A” (NIM A).
The next SRI conference will be held in 2027 in Brazil.
Image: Isabelle Boscaro-Clarke (left) chairing the Lightsources.org careers session with panel members (left to right), Britta Redlich, HFML – FELIX and LEAPS, Gianluigi Botton, Diamond Light Source, Sakura Pascarelli, the European XFEL, Gerd Materlik, UCL and Laurent Chapon, Argonne (APS).
Credit: Lightsources.org