Berkeley Lab Expert Interviews

In this one-minute audio, Ethan Crumlin, Deputy for Science in the Chemical Sciences Division and a staff scientist at the Advanced Light Source, explains how APXPS, a specialized technique at the Advanced Light Source, identifies a “rainbow” of interfacial chemistry products essential to high-performance batteries and other energy technologies.

Cyclotron Road, a DOE Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program at Berkeley Lab, empowers leading science entrepreneurs to advance their technology projects from idea to global impact. Among its successes is Fervo Energy, founded by 2018 cohort members Tim Latimer and Jack Norbeck. Fervo provides 24/7 energy by developing next-generation geothermal power, revolutionizing this type of power generation...

Actinide Chemistry at the 88-Inch Cyclotron

Cybersecurity is essential to protecting the data, infrastructure, and technologies behind modern science and society. At the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), Sean Peisert leads efforts to secure everything from supercomputers to the power grid. Using innovative approaches like physics-based monitoring and privacy-preserving data analysis, his team’s wor...

The Molecular Foundry is a state-of-the-art user facility that provides expertise, methods, and instrumentation for scientists to study materials at the nanoscale. In this episode, Ashfia shares with us the Foundry's mission, its capabilities, and some of the groundbreaking research that has been conducted there. From developing new tools and techniques to pushing the boundaries of what we ca...

In this 5-minute audio interview, listen as Nigel Mouncey, Director of the Joint Genome Institute (JGI), explains how this user facility supports the world’s scientists. Featuring:   Nigel Mouncey, the Director of the DOE Joint Genome Institute at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). In addition to leading JGI, Mouncey also heads the Secondary Metabolites Program that is developin...

Fusion energy has the potential to transform energy supplies for the world. At the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, researchers are developing the technologies and techniques needed to make fusion energy a reality. In this audio interview, hear how their interdisciplinary work is paving the way toward limitless energy for the future. Featuring: Cameron Geddes , directo...

Geothermal energy taps into the Earth’s natural heat—but what happens when that heat isn’t easily accessible? Berkeley Lab scientists are working to solve that problem through enhanced geothermal systems, or EGS. In this episode, we talk with Eva Schill, program lead for geothermal systems in the Energy Geosciences Division, about the promise of EGS, what makes it different from conventional geoth...

In this audio interview, listen as Berkeley Lab’s Harshi Mukundan, a microbiologist in the Biosciences Area and Chemical and Biological Technologies Lead in the Lab’s Office of National and Homeland Security, discusses the importance of biosecurity research.

The Advanced Light Source is home to many techniques that can reveal atomic details of molecules and materials. The Berkeley Center for Structural Biology (BCSB) leads a subset of these capabilities that are focused on elucidating the structure of biological molecules. For 25 years, pharmaceutical companies from across the nation have been collaborating with BCSB experts to study proteins related...

After decades of research and development, extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography has recently reached the point of high-volume semiconductor manufacturing, marking a significant technological breakthrough. Berkeley Lab’s Center for X-ray Optics (CXRO) has played an instrumental role in this achievement, working directly with chipmakers to develop tools to overcome longstanding challenges in EUV re...

Scientists are using light at X-ray wavelengths to reveal the secret worlds of atoms and electrons. The Advanced Light Source is a U.S. Department of Energy scientific user facility at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The ALS mission is to advance science for the benefit of society by providing world-class synchrotron light source capabilities and expertise to a broad scientific community. F...

Batteries power everything from the phone in your pocket to grid-scale energy storage, and their technology has advanced dramatically over the years. Developing reliable and efficient energy materials is crucial to this progress. For the past 30 years, the Advanced Light Source has played a key role in revolutionizing battery and energy materials research, enabling breakthroughs that drive innovat...

The integration of high-performance computing and AI is accelerating scientific discovery, and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is at the forefront of innovation. With over 11,000 users from various scientific fields, NERSC has expanded its mission to include data analysis and is now receiving more data than it processes. Aim...

The Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts Process Development Unit (ABPDU) is helping catalyze a new era of manufacturing: using biology to produce innovative materials, fuels, foods, and more. The ABPDU provides the technical resources, equipment, and expertise needed to take bench-scale discoveries all the way to market readiness. Listen to this podcast to learn more about the ABPDU’s collaborations...

Bruno La Fontaine, Director of the Center for X-ray Optics (CXRO), speaks on how the CXRO supports the microchip industry.  

Biomanufacturing sounds complicated, but in a simple explanation, it is using biology and biological systems to perform certain operations in the manufacturing process. The goal is to produce goods and products that can be sold in the marketplace. Listen in this episode as Blake Simmons, Division Director of Biological Systems and Engineering in the Biosciences Area of Lawrence Berkeley National L...

Scientific breakthroughs rely on seamless data movement, much like a circulatory system delivering vital knowledge. Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), the Department of Energy’s sole high-performance networking user facility, keeps this system running and enables breakthroughs that shape our world. Listen to this podcast where we talk about how ESnet supports the nation’s scientists. Featuring: Inde...

Listen to ESnet’s Chief Technology Officer Chin Guok discuss AI advancement opportunities for ESnet7 during a 2024 AI workshop.