Joint Appointments
Stony Brook and Brookhaven National Lab have more than 75 joint appointments supporting the strategic missions of both institutions. Many of these are guest appointments (at BNL) or nonsalaried faculty appointments (at Stony Brook) that enable researchers to develop collaborations, access facilities, mentor students, and in some cases participate in teaching.
Other joint appointments involve formal arrangements, with effort assigned at Stony Brook and Brookhaven and shared salary funding.
Joint appointees strengthen ties between Stony Brook and Brookhaven, facilitate student engagement at Brookhaven, and contribute to shared research goals.
VIDEO: Listen to what Esther Takeuchi, Jim Misewich, Abhay Deshpande, and Roy Lacey say about our relationship with BNL
Meet some of our joint appointees below:
Barbara Chapman’s research focuses on exploring technologies and strategies for increasing
the productivity of application developers, particularly for the creation of application
programs that are deployed on large-scale computers. She performs research on parallel
programmi
ng interfaces and the related implementation technology and is involved in several efforts to develop community standards for parallel programming, including OpenMP, OpenSHMEM and OpenACC. She is also interested in productivity-enhancing tools and in supporting the use of parallel computing systems in embedded systems design. Barbara serves on national and international science advisory committees and has authored over 200 scholarly works in this field.
Prof. Chen-Wiegart is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Materials Science
and Chemical Engineering in Stony Brook University (SBU). She also holds a Joint Appointment
with National Synchrotron Light Source – II (NSLS-II) at Brookhaven National Laboratory
(BNL), coordinating the effort of multi-modal research approach. She holds a Ph.D.
degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern University. Prof. Chen-Wiegart
emphasizes on applying state-of-the-art x-ray imaging and spectroscopic techniques
to study novel functional materials. Her current interests include energy storage
and conversion, nano-/meso-porous materials, thin film & surface treatment, and cultural
heritage.
Before joining Stony Brook University, she served as beamline scientist at the Sub-Micron Resolution X-ray Spectroscopy (SRX) Beamline of NSLS-II. Prior to that she was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Synchrotron Light Source at BNL, where she participated in the commissioning of the new high-resolution x-ray transmission microscope and in establishing the new associated research program. Her PhD research focused on the study of the dealloying and coarsening behaviors of nanoporous metal which has numerous potential applications, co-funded by Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory. While continuing to develop cutting-edge x-ray tools, she is exploring new opportunities in functional materials. She has also been active in out-reach programs at NSLS-II and SBU, organizing events such as “Bring Our Children to Work Day” for the Photon Sciences Division at BNL, volunteering for educational and outreach events, and teaching courses in Women in Science & Engineering program at SBU.
Prof. Abhay Deshpande works in experimental high energy nuclear physics. His current
research focuses on understanding the contributions of quarks, antiquarks and gluons
to the proton's spin using the PHENIX detector and high energy polarized proton beams
at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The property of "spin" has played a
crucial role in the development of our understanding of physics in the past 100 years.
In fact, arguably, the 20th century could be called the "Century of Spin Surprises"
Ehm is interested in the connection between atomic structure and macroscopic physical
properties in Earth materials at extreme pressure and temperature conditions of the
deep Earth. Our goal is to understand the structure, chemistry and properties as well
as the processes in Earth’s interior. As we can only directly sample Earth materials
from relatively shallow depth, we depend heavily on simulating the conditions of the
Earth’s interior in the laboratory. Synchrotron sources, especially the National Synchrotron
Light Source, have been an excellent tool for our measurements, since the very bright
and intense synchrotron light allows us to penetrate the high pressure vessels and
investigate the Earth material directly at the pressure and temperature conditions
of interest. The development of new synchrotron instrumentation and sample environments
that enable the investigation of materials at extreme conditions is the second focus
of the group and goes hand in hand with our research quest of understanding the deep
Earth.
Physico-chemical properties of nanocatalysts, structure-property function relationships
in disordered systems, mechanisms of catalytic reactions, mechanisms of work of electromechanical
materials (piezo-, ferro-, pyro-electrics and electrostrictors. Use of synchrotron-based
techniques in materials characterization (x-ray absorption (XAFS) and emission (RIXS)
spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction). Development of new in situ/operando techniques for
studies of functional nanomaterials.
Professor Robert Harrison is a distinguished expert in high-performance computing.
Through a joint appointment with Brookhaven National Laboratory, Professor Harrison
has also been named Director of the Computational Science Center at Brookhaven National
Laboratory. Dr. Harrison comes to Stony Brook from the University of Tennessee and
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he was Director of the Joint Institute of Computational
Science, Professor of Chemistry and Corporate Fellow. He has a prolific career in
high-performance computing with over one hundred publications on the subject, as well
as extensive service on national advisory committees.
We are interested in studying the properties of the dense nuclear matter created in
elativistic heavy ion collisions. Under extremely high temperature and density, such
matter exist in the form of quasi-free quarks and gluons (Quark-Gluon Plasma or QGP),
whose interactions are scribed by the Quantum ChromoDynamics theory (QCD). We seek to recreate and study QGP in the laboratory and to understandits
underlying QCD theory. Our research is carried out at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at BNL and at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Our group is involved with the PHENIX and ATLAS experiments respectively, at each of these accelerator facilities
Materials Chemistry, Solid State Chemistry: Periodic solids provide the backbone of
the high-tech industry due to their amplification of the interactions between individual
atomic and molecular building blocks assembled within their crystalline lattices.
This group focuses on designing functionality into crystalline solids using elemental
substitution and structural control to fine-tune the energy levels of bulk materials.
Our expertise in materials synthesis, structural characterization, and physical properties
measurements allows us to tackle all aspects of this “internal design” process.
Dmitri Kharzeev is interested in all aspects of the modern theory of strong interactions
- Quantum Chromo-Dynamics (QCD), and its applications to the description of experimentally
accessible phenomena. He is closely involved in theoretical research related to the
programs at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at BNL and Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
In particular, he studies the ways in which the underlying quark-gluon structure of
hadrons and nuclei determines the dynamics of their interactions and the salient features
of the visible Universe. Many of these features stem from topology of non-Abelian
gauge theories that form the current Standard Model of the physical world. Dmitri
also believes that all sub-fields of physics are deeply connected, and cross-disciplinary
interactions are necessary for the advancement of science. For example, he argues
that topology holds the key to understanding many universal dynamical properties of
systems at vastly different scales, from femto-meter (quarks and gluons of QCD), to
nano-meter (e.g. topological insulators and graphene), to parsec (e.g. magnetic helicity
and polarization of cosmic microwave background).
The clouds and radars research group focuses on the physical understanding of the
atmospheric component of the hydrological cycle and the improved representation of
cloud and precipitation processes in global, regional and cloud scale numerical models.
Our group is also interest in the use of radars in weather and climate research, from
severe weather nowcasting to cloud-scale processes.
Synergetic remote sensing observations from both space-based and ground-based sensors and their clever use through the development of new inversion algorithms and adaptive sampling strategies constitute our approach for probing clouds and precipitation in their natural environment. As part of our research we use a wide variety of observational platforms, however, millimeter wavelength radars are our primary observing tool for diagnosing the structure, kinematics and microphysics of clouds and precipitation. For more information visit the Clouds and Radars Research Group web site.
Litvinenko joined Brookhaven as a senior physicist in 2003, and he is currently head
of the Accelerator Physics Group for Brookhaven's newest facility for nuclear physics
research, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. After joining BNL in 2003, Litvinenko
made critical contributions to R&lD on the high-energy electron cooling of RHIC and
to discoveries in designing high-brightness electron beam injection to an energy recovery
linac machine. He also played a key role in the National Synchrotron Light Source
II team developing the design philosophy for this unique light source. With colleagues,
he also established the Center for Accelerator Science & Education at Stony Brook
University and BNL, where he is a co-director and teaches students. In 2004, the International
Free Electron Laser (FEL) community awarded him the FEL Prize for his outstanding
contributions for FEL science and technology.
Klaus has been working in the field of data visualization since the early 1990s. This
was before the terms “big data”, “data science”, and “deep learning” became ubiquitous
buzz words. Klaus has a PhD degree from Ohio State and his dissertation work was on
iterative computed tomography (CT) reconstruction for limited data (and their visualization
with volume rendering). Since these algorithms took a long time he looked into the
use of parallel computers to speed things up. Coincidentally around that time parallel
computing started to become a commodity in the form of GPUs, mainly facilitated by
the vast emergence of computer games on personal platforms. Klaus embraced this technology
and his research helped make iterative CT reconstruction for low dose and sparse data
feasible for clinical and scientific use.
When joining Stony Brook University in 1999 he also received a guest appointment at BNL and soon after he met a couple of innovative atmospheric scientists who had just built a spectral analyzer that could acquire and break apart thousands of particles per minute. This fateful encounter, which would emerge into a research collaboration that lasted for nearly two decades, Klaus got started on big data, high-dimensional data, machine learning, and data science when these research topics were just emerging. Since then Klaus, aided by the creative minds of a few generations of PhD students working with him, has written many papers on these topics, given tutorials at international conferences, and engaged in many projects with numerous collaborators from various fields. He is looking forward to new collaborations at BNL and help scientists gain insight into their complex and massive data. For more information, visit http://www3.cs.stonybrook.edu/~mueller/
John is interested in the relationships between properties and the underlying atomic
arrangements in condensed matter, especially at the extremes of temperature and pressure.
Under extreme cond itions the properties of materials can be quite different, and
potentially useful, compared to those properties at room conditions. Coupling to theory,
preparation of novel states of matter, recovering to room conditions, studying properties
and characterizing the atomic arrangements are vital parts of the research program
and so coupling to the facilities at Brookhaven is a considerable advantage. John
co-directs the Joint Photon Sciences Institute (JPSI) which was formed by BNL-SBU
to promote interactions, to educate potential users and to help develop the intellectual
framework to optimize use of the unique facilities now or soon to be available atBrookhaven.
For information on Chemistry projects go to his Department of Chemistry page
Roman Samulyak’s research involves mathematical modeling, numerical algorithms and
simulations of complex physics processes in particle accelerators and energy research
applications. He has performed numerical studies of liquids mercury targets for future
particle accelerators such as the Neutrino Factory/Muon Collider and the Spallation
Neutron Source, collective interactions of particles in accelerators, and fueling
of thermonuclear fusion devices by the injection of cryogenic pellets.
High Resolution Spectroscopy and Molecular Dynamics: Research in my group is focused
upon the study of high resolution spectroscopy of chemical intermediates and the development
of precise and sensitive experimental methods. The spectroscopic methods are also
used to investigate the energetics, dynamics and kinetics of collisional processes
in the gas phase by following the evolution of a single quantum state of a molecule
in time. The goal of this work is a fundamental understanding of chemical processes
relatedto combustion. We are interested in the microscopic factors affecting the structure,
dynamics and reactivity of short-lived intermediates such as free radicals in gas-phase
reactions. Recent work has involved the development of new laser double resonance
techniques to investigate higher electronic states of the CH2 radical and sub-Doppler
measurements of spectra of the CN radical. In collaboration with Professor P. M. Johnson,
laser photoelectron spectroscopy of larger, aromatic, molecules has identified a new
pathway, probably involving an isomerization, following electronic excitation of phenylacetylene
and a related species, benzonitrile. The experimental work is supported by the use
of ab initio electronic structure calculations and both time-dependent and time-independent
quantum calculations of nuclear motion.
The advancement of battery systems with high energy and power densities remains a
lynch pin for new generations of energy storage. The full utilization of renewable
energy sources such as wind, photovoltaic, hydroelectric, and geothermal power depends
on the ability to store energy as in many cases the renewable energy is generated
on an intermittent basis. Additionally, portable electronics, hybrid vehicles, electric
vehicles, biomedical devices, and aerospace applications demand advanced batteries
that can perform safely over many years. Finally, the way in which communities handle
power demands through power grids may be affected significantly by new developments
in energy storage. Specific areas of research. For next generation primary and secondary
battery applications demanding long life, high energy density and high power, new
strategies are needed for the rational design of electroactive materials and the concomitant
engineering associated with battery design. Professor Takeuchi’s research efforts
are collaborative in nature, involving scientists with a variety of research expertise.
For example, we have an on-going research interest in the structure / function relationships
among electroactive materials and redox properties as related to electrochemical energy
storage. We also are actively involved in the synthesis of new electroactive materials
and the subsequent analysis involving a variety of chemical and physical properties
of materials. Further, we conduct fundamental mechanistic studies involving the complex
interplay among redox processes, ion transport, and electrode precipitation / dissolution
that are critical to the electrochemistry associated with battery science.
Dongyan’s research focuses on understanding the structure-function relationship of
macromolecules that are involved in gene regulation. She is particularly interested
in a DNA-protein complex called chromatin, and in how its structure-dynamics is regulated
during normal development of multi-cellular organisms. She uses the state-of-the-art
cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) and image analysis to obtain atomic-level structural
information of the protein complex in various functional states in vivo and in vitro.
These studies will provide valuable insights into our understanding of the complex
and dynamic process of gene regulation. She also holds a Joint Appointment with the
National Synchrotron Light Source-II (NSLS-II) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL).
She is working with the scientists from NSLS-II to bring the cryo-EM technology to
BNL by establishing the first cryo-EM center there.
Besides running her research program, Dongyan has also been actively participating
in different educational and outreach activities at SBU and BNL.
DYNAMICS AT SURFACES: Our research is aimed at providing a molecular level understanding
of the energetics, dynamics and morphology-dependence of elementary surface reactions
that play key roles in energy-related catalysis. Specifically, we are interested in
systems involving simple feedstock chemicals (e.g., H2, CO, CO2, O2, CH4), the selective
oxidation of C1 and C2 molecules (e.g., CH3OH, C2H4) and reaction systems that have
environmental impact (e.g., De-NOx, De-SOx). We approach these problems from a chemical
physics perspective in which experiments are designed to probe the adsorbate-metal
potential surface and the dynamical paths that lead to reaction. Our experimental
program makes extensive use of lasers for both state-selective detection of desorbed
products and the photo-initiation of surface processes such as desorption, diffusion,
dissociation and reaction. Current studies are focused on understanding the photoinduced
reactions on semi-conducting surfaces such as titania (TiO2); whose photoactivity
is widely used for removing organic pollutants from air and water, for anti-fogging
and self-cleaning surfaces and as a potential photocatayst for solar water splitting.