Contact: Paul Preuss, 510-486-6249

Berkeley, CA – Five Berkeley Lab physicists have been named Fellows of the American Physical Society (APS) for 2009. Fellows are nominated by their APS colleagues, chosen by Fellowship committees within each APS division, and finally elected by the APS Council; fellowship is thus “a distinct honor signifying recognition by one’s professional peers.”

Of the 215 new Fellows this year, the five from Berkeley Lab are:

  • Stephen Gourlay, Director of the Accelerator and Fusion Research Division, “for his intellectual leadership and technical achievements in the design, fabrication and testing of high field superconducting accelerator magnets”;
  • Beate Heinemann, Physics Division, “for contributions to the search for physics beyond the Standard Model through precision measurements in electron-proton collisions and direct searches for new particles and phenomena in proton-antiproton collisions”;
  • Spencer Klein, Nuclear Science Division, “for pioneering studies of quantum-mechanical interference effects in coulomb interactions between highly-charged nuclei at ultra-relativistic energies, and in the suppression of bremsstrahlung in electron scattering from dense media”;
  • John Staples, Accelerator and Fusion Research Division, “for his exemplary leadership and contributions to the design, fabrication and commissioning of radio frequency quadrupoles, for his innovative work in the development of femtosecond beam synchronization techniques, and for dedication to the mentoring of accelerator students and young colleagues”; and
  • Nu Xu, Nuclear Science Division, “for important contributions to the observation of partonic collectivity.”

Names and citations of the 2009 Fellows will be published in the March, 2010 issue of APS News, and certificates will be preseented at the annual meetings of the individual APS divisions.

Berkeley Lab is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located in Berkeley, California. It conducts unclassified scientific research for DOE’s Office of Science and is managed by the University of California. Visit our website at http://www.lbl.gov.

Additional information

Names of all the 2009 Fellows and more information about the APS is at http://www.aps.org.