People
UXSS 2016 Lecture
Featured Talk
Faculty
Siegfried Glenzer
Division Director
Siegfried Glenzer, who is the recipient of the recent E. O. Lawrence award, is Professor and High-Energy-Density division director at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. He joined SLAC as a distinguished scientist in 2013 to build a new discovery-class program in exploring matter in extreme conditions using high-power lasers and the world-class Linac Coherent Light Source x-ray beam.
Before joining SLAC, he held the plasma physics group leader position at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for 12 years, where he led the first inertial confinement fusion experiments on the National Ignition Facility. He has also been visiting lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. Siegfried is the individual recipient of the American Physical Society “Excellence in Plasma Physics” Award (2003). He also won two DOE Excellence in Publications Awards (2011 & 2014) and two Science and Technology Awards (2005 & 2012). In 2004, he received the Alexander-von-Humboldt senior research prize and spent a research and teaching year at the Universität Rostock and at the Deutsche Elektronen Synchrotron in Hamburg, Germany. Since then, he has been the host for two Alexander-von-Humboldt Lynen postdoctoral fellows, two Lawrence postdoctoral fellows, three Peter-Paul-Ewald fellows, and has supervised more than 20 postdoctoral scientists both at LLNL and SLAC.
Email: glenzer@slac.stanford.edu Phone: 650-926-3511
Senior Staff Scientist/Staff Scientist
Frederico Fiuza
Senior Staff Scientist and Theory Group Leader
Frederico Fiuza is a Senior Staff Scientist and Theory Group Leader at the High Energy Density Science division at SLAC. He obtained his PhD in Plasma Physics from Instituto Superior Tecnico, Portugal, in 2012. From 2012 to 2015 he was a Lawrence Postdoctoral Fellow at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, before joining SLAC. His research combines plasma theory, kinetic simulations, and high-energy-density experiments to explore a wide range of topics in astrophysical and laboratory plasmas, including particle acceleration, magnetic field amplification, collionless shocks, magnetic reconnection, and nuclear fusion. Frederico is the recipient of the 2020 John Dawson Award and the 2018 Thomas H. Stix Award from the American Physical Society. He has also received the DOE Early Career Research Program Award in 2017, the European Physical Society PhD Research Award in 2013, the Lawrence Fellowship in 2012.
Email: fiuza@slac.stanford.edu Phone: 650-926-4076
Luke Fletcher
Staff Scientist
Luke Fletcher is an associate staff scientist working in the High Energy Density Sciences (HED) division at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. He is the acting group leader for the high pressure physics group within HED, and is a senior principle investigator for experiments performed at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) involving high temperature and high pressure states of matter. Luke joined SLAC in 2013 after completing a two-year postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of California Berkeley department of physics working in collaboration with the National Ignition Facility photon science group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. In that capacity, his research focused on using laser produced x-ray sources to measure temperatures, densities, and ionization states of above solid-density plasmas using x-ray Thomson scattering techniques. Luke received a bachelor of science in physics from the University of Arizona, and a master’s degree and doctorate in applied physics from the University of California Davis.
Email: lbfletch@slac.stanford.edu Phone: 650-926-5562
Arianna Gleason
Staff Scientist
A. Gleason is a Staff Scientist in the Fundamental Physics Directorate at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Adjunct Faculty in both the Geological Science Department, Stanford University & Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, University of Rochester where she focuses on dynamic mesoscale materials properties. She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 2010 working on high pressure mineral physics and planetary sciences. She was the Frederick Reines and Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the Los Alamos National Laboratory from Shock and Detonation Physics 2014-1018. Her research spans geo- and planetary sciences to fusion energy research by applying ultrafast X-ray probes to dynamic materials processes. She recently received the DOE’s Early Career Award in 2019 in Fusion Energy Science (FES) and is a member of the FES Long Range Planning Committee.
Email: aegleaso@slac.stanford.edu Phone: 650-926-2889
Mianzhen Mo
Associate Staff Scientist
Mianzhen Mo is an Associate Staff Scientist in the High Energy Density Science division at SLAC. He joined the division as a postdoc researcher in 2015. His research focuses on ultrafast-electron-diffraction studies of warm dense matter, ultrafast, melting kinetics, and radiation-damaged materials. Before joining SLAC, he did his PhD study at the University of Alberta in Canada and his research focused on ultra-intense laser-plasma interaction relevant to laser wakefield acceleration and fast ignition. He received a LDRD award from SLAC in 2020 and has served as a guest editor for the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Physics since 2021.
Email: mmo09@slac.stanford.edu Phone: 650-926-8572
Panofsky Fellow
Emma McBride
Panofsky Fellow
Emma Elizabeth McBride is currently a Peter Paul Ewald Postdoctoral Fellow at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the High Energy Density (HED) Instrument at the European XFEL, Germany. Through an award from the Scottish Doctoral Training Centre in Condensed Matter Physics, she received her PhD at the Centre of Science at Extreme Conditions (CSEC) at the University of Edinburgh, UK, focusing on using static and dynamic compression techniques to investigate the alkali elements. Following her PhD she worked as a postdoctoral research at DESY, Germany, on the Helmholtz International Beamline for Extreme Fields (HIBEF), a user consortium aiming to provide high-powered long and short pulse laser, pulsed magnetic fields, and diamond anvil cells to the HED instrument at European XFEL. During this time she served as the secretary of the HIBEF Scientific Advisory Committee. Her current research focusses on performing static and dynamic compression experiments on hard X-ray FELS, with particular attention paid to using in situ X-ray diffraction to probe extreme pressure and temperature states on nanosecond timescales.
Email: emcbride@slac.stanford.edu
Ben Ofori-Okai
Panofsky Fellow
Ben Ofori-Okai received his PhD from MIT working in Prof. Keith Nelson’s group. There, his research efforts focused on the development of THz polaritonics, high field THz generation, and single shot THz detection as well as applications in these three fields. Prior to that he worked in the group of Prof. Christian Degen studying nitrogen vacancy defects in bulk and nano crystalline diamond for potential applications in nanometer scale magnetometry.
Ben is currently studying the material properties of warm dense matter.
Email: benofori@slac.stanford.edu Phone: 650-926-8572
Research Associates
Mungo Frost
Research Associate
Mungo Frost did his PhD in high pressure physics at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He is a postdoctoral researcher with HEDS studying high pressure phase diagrams and materials using diamond anvil cells together with optical spectroscopy and x-ray diffraction. Particular interests include low Z elements and compounds containing them.
Email: mdfrost@slac.stanford.edu
Maxence Gauthier
Research Associate
Maxence completed his Ph.D. at the Laboratoire pour L’utilisation des Laser Intenses (LULI), Palaiseau, France (Ecole Polytechnique thesis prize 2013) and undergraduate studies at the Ecole Supérieur d’électricité. His research interest lies in the field of relativistic laser-plasma interaction. His work is focused on the production of energetic ions using high-intensity short pulse laser and their potential application to generate and diagnose high energy density plasmas. More specifically, he has been involved in experiments aiming at measuring ion stopping power in isochorically-heated warm dense matter, studying processes relevant to astrophysics such as magnetic field self-generation and collision-less shock acceleration.
Email: gauthier@slac.stanford.edu Phone: 650-926-2889
Robin Lafever
Research Associate
'Old Guy' Designer, Engineer, occasional Scientists Experimental Design and Hardware support.
Robin Lafever is a veteran designer, engineer, and occasional scientist with a 30 year career in developing and implementing experiments in high-energy physics, aerospace, and cosmology. At Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory his work spans superconducting accelerator magnets, detectors, instruments and experimental hardware for high-energy physics, neutrino and double-beta decay experiments., and later, at Space Sciences Laboratory, U.C. Berkekey, space telescopes and dark energy experiments.
A recent project is the DESI Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument currently being installed on the Mayall 4 Meter Telescope at Kitt peak Arizona. First light is expected this year Robin Lafever joined HEDS in 2017 to provide engineering and CAD support to HEDS researchers.
Email: robin.lafever@gmail.com
Postdoctoral Researcher
Zhijiang Chen
Postdoctoral Researcher
Zhijiang Chen is a postdoctoral fellow researcher at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and NSERC postdoctoral fellow from Canada. He earned his PhD degree from University of Alberta. His main research interests lies in ultrafast laser matter interaction, especially in non-equilibrium warm dense matter. He uses a variety of cutting edge diagnostics including ultrashort pulse THz, optical laser, free electron laser and electron diffraction to study the electron and ion dynamics and electrical conductivity, as surrogates to material properties in warm dense matter conditions.
Email: zchen@slac.stanford.edu Phone: 650-926-3967
Silvia Pandolfi
Postdoctoral Researcher
Silvia Pandolfi received her PhD from Sorbonne Université, France, in 2019. There, she worked at the IMPMC lab to synthesize new functional materials using high-pressure. In particular, she used multi-anvil apparatus to obtain new phases of Si and Si-bearing compounds for photovoltaic applications. Her current work at SLAC focuses on the characterization of material properties and phase transitions under dynamic compression.
Email: silviap@slac.stanford.edu
PhD Candidate
Chandra Curry
PhD Candidate
Chandra is a graduate student at the University of Alberta, co-supervised by Prof. Siegfried Glenzer and Dean Ying Tsui. She received her B.Sc. in Honours Physics from McGill University and conducted undergraduate research in high-intensity laser-plasmas at LLNL.
Her current research focusses on the generation and characterization of high energy density hydrogen plasmas. Specifically, she is interested in alternative ion acceleration regimes such as collision-less shock acceleration from a cryogenic hydrogen source developed by the High Energy Density Sciences Division at SLAC.
Email: ccurry@slac.stanford.edu Phone: 650-926-2889
Christopher Schönwälder
PhD Candidate
Christopher is a PhD student at the Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen/Nürnberg. He first joined the group for a period of ten months in February of 2017 while working on his Master's thesis focusing on cryogenic jets. He returned in September 2018 for his PhD studied under the supervision of Prof. Stefan Funk at Friedrich-Alexander University and Prof. Siegfried Glenzer at SLAC in the field of laboratory astrophysics. His current research revolves around emission spectroscopy of hot hydrogen plasmas produced from cryogenic jets.
Email: schchris@slac.stanford.edu
Peihao Sun
PhD Candidate
Peihao Sun is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of Physics at Stanford University. He was awarded the Stanford Graduate Fellowship in Science and Engineering. He received his B.S. in Physics with a minor in Mathematics in 2015 from UCLA. His current research focuses on materials under extreme conditions, such as high pressure shocks and high-level irradiation.
Email: phsun@stanford.edu
Franziska Treffert
PhD Candidate
Franziska joined the group in January 2018 to study the ion acceleration and neutron generation with cryogenic jet targets. The research she is conducting at SLAC is part of her PhD thesis with advisors Prof. Markus Roth at Technical University Darmstadt in Germany and Siegfried Glenzer at SLAC. She received her B.Sc., as well as M.Sc., from Technical University Darmstadt. Her Bachelor thesis was conducted in collaboration with the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) in Darmstadt. For her Master thesis she conducted research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she studied ion acceleration with an induction accelerator and laser ion acceleration using the BELLA laser.
Email: treffert@slac.stanford.edu
Graduate Student
Griffin Glenn
Graduate Student
Griffin is a PhD student in the Stanford University Department of Applied Physics. In 2019 he received a BS in Physics (Dean’s Scholars Honors) and a BA in Plan II Honors from The University of Texas at Austin, where he conducted research in HEDS using the Texas Petawatt Laser. His current research focuses on developing sources of laser-driven ion and neutron beams using cryogenic liquid jet targets developed at SLAC. He is currently supported by a DOE NNSA Stewardship Science Graduate Fellowship.
Email: gdglenn@SLAC.Stanford.EDU
John Ryan Peterson
Graduate Student
Ryan is a Ph.D. student in the Stanford Physics department. He received a B.S. in physics with a minor in mathematics from Brigham Young University. Ryan's research focuses on simulation and theory of plasma streaming instabilities both on astrophysical and laboratory scales. Additional studies include ion acceleration in plasmas with HEDS experimentalists as well as nonlinear optical propagation in water with collaborators at the Naval Research Laboratory. Ryan has recently been awarded the DOE NNSA Laboratory Residency Graduate Fellowship; during the fellowship tenure, he will collaborate with scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to develop compact laser-powered x-ray and gamma-ray sources.
Email: jrpete@SLAC.Stanford.EDU
Maximilian Schoerner
Graduate Student
Max is currently a Master's student at the University of Rostock and he is a member of the statistical physics group there. He first joined the HEDS group at SLAC in early 2017 after he finished his Bachelor's degree at the Technical University Dortmund to take part in various experiments involving pump-probe experiments on jet targets. His current work focuses on DFT-MD simulations for the dynamic structure factor in warm dense matter.
Email: maxsch@slac.stanford.edu
