Professor John N. Galayda
Professor (Research) of Photon Science and of Particle Physics and Astrophysics
Stanford University
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Menlo Park, California
An overview of X-ray free-electron lasers - History Basic physics Use as a research tool Status today and prospects for future developments at SLAC and elsewhere in the world
Biography
John Galayda is director of the Linac Coherent Light Source II (LCLS-II) project, a collaboration of six institutions constructing a major expansion of SLAC’s LCLS X-ray laser user facility. He joined SLAC in 2001 as director of the original LCLS project, which created the world’s first x-ray free-electron laser. He has a joint appointment in the Photon Sciences and Particle Physics/Astrophysics faculties at SLAC. Galayda came to SLAC from Argonne National Laboratory, where he was deputy associate laboratory director for the Advanced Photon Source (APS). He had joined Argonne in 1990 as director of the APS Accelerator Systems Division with responsibility for construction, commissioning and operation of the APS storage ring and injector systems. From 1977 to 1990 Galayda worked on construction and operation of the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He served as associate department chair at NSLS and became a member of the lab’s tenured staff.
Galayda’s career has been devoted to the physics, design, construction and operation of synchrotron light sources and free-electron lasers. He is the recipient of the Robert R. Wilson Prize, the Arthur H. Compton Award, the Free-Electron Laser Prize, the U.S. Secretary of Energy’s Excellence and Appreciation awards and an R&D 100 Award. He was named a Fellow in the American Physical Society in 1996. Galayda earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from Lehigh University and a PhD in physics from Rutgers University.
This talk is sponsored by the Department of Applied Physics and by Ginzton Laboratory