2007 ALS Users' Meeting Highlights
Note: Next year's ALS Users' Meeting will be held October 13–14, 2008.
This year's ALS Users' Meeting, held on October 4–6, was the first joint ALS–Molecular Foundry event, with a variety of shared activities, including plenary and poster sessions, a student poster competition, 3 of the 12 workshops, and a banquet. Another first was the dedication of two major facilities—the ALS User Support Building and the Berkeley Lab Guest House. In addition, a special session honored the memory of ALS Users Services Group Leader Gary Krebs. All told, 616 people attended, 396 from the ALS and 220 from the Molecular Foundry (MF).
The meeting began with a joint plenary session where Graham Fleming, Deputy Director of Berkeley Lab, welcomed the meeting attendees before ALS Division Director Roger Falcone and Molecular Foundry Division Director Carolyn Bertozzi provided facility updates and explored future joint opportunities between the two divisions. Following their talks, Pat Dehmer (Associate Director of Science for Basic Energy Sciences [BES], U.S. Department of Energy [DOE]) outlined how BES identified the basic science needed to meet future energy needs, stating that light sources will be among the most powerful. She was followed by Mike Lubell of the American Physical Society who gave an insider's view on science and the Washington political scene. Nobel Prize recipient and ALS user Roger Kornberg kicked off the joint keynote science session with a talk on the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription. (Note: Where available, talks are linked on the Agenda Web page.)
Roger Falcone gave an overview of the ALS in the Building 50 Auditorium, while Carolyn Bertozzi spoke via an audio-visual link from the Molecular Foundry meeting. All joint sessions were delivered simultaneously to both sites.
At the conclusion of the morning session, Pat Dehmer presided over the groundbreaking ceremony for the ALS User Support Building (below).
Graham Fleming led the Joint ALS–MF Science Highlight Session in the afternoon with an examination of the Grand Challenges for Basic Energy Sciences. A session devoted to ALS updates was led by ALS manager David Robin, who discussed planned upgrades and additions. ALS Environment, Safety, and Health manager Jim Floyd and Scientific Advisor Janos Kirz updated the users on ALS safety initiatives and other ALS user affairs.
The combined poster session (below) was held on Thursday in the late afternoon at the Molecular Foundry. The setting provided a unique opportunity to for ALS users to view the scientific posters from the ALS and MF, but also to tour the labs and discuss collaborative opportunities with MF scientists.
Following the poster sessions, all meeting attendees met on the ALS patio for the awards banquet and buffet dinner. See the Awards page for details and photos of the winners.
Friday morning was devoted to UEC business, an ALS town hall meeting, and ALS science highlights. Then, at a special session, friends remembered User Services Group Leader Gary Krebs, who passed away suddenly in May. Members of Gary's family were also present. Janos Kirz affirmed the sentiments of those who knew Gary, saying that he "appreciated, valued, and admired Gary's character and integrity, and his passion in helping users." At the groundbreaking ceremony (below) for the Berkeley Lab Guest House, Tony van Buuren, UEC chair, stated that the new building will "up" the quality of the science at the ALS and emphasized how instrumental Gary Krebs was in making the building a reality. A plaque honoring Gary will be placed in the Guest House.
