Stanford University
Showing 1,341-1,350 of 14,549 Results
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Sebastien Boutet
Senior Scientist, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
BioI am currently a Senior Staff Scientist at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), part of SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. I also serve the role of LCLS Director of Experimental Operations since 2020.
I joined SLAC in 2007 working on the Coherent X-ray Imaging (CXI) instrument as part of the LCLS Ultrafast Science Instrument (LUSI) project. This project delivered one of the first operating LCLS instruments in 2011, available to the user community for cutting edge ultrafast x-ray science. After a few years of working with LCLS staff and a broad user community on many experiments, I also worked on the design and deployment of a new LCLS x-ray instrument, the Macromolecular Femtosecond Crystallography (MFX) instrument. From there, I became the Department Head for the LCLS Hard X-ray Department, charged with the operations of the XPP, XCS, MFX and CXI instruments. I worked in this role until 2020 when I become LCLS Director of Experimental Operations.
During my undergraduate studies in Physics at McGill University, I spent a summer at TRIUMF at the University of British Columbia working on heavy ion cooling trap simulations. After graduating with Honours in 1999, I joined Ian Robinson x-ray diffraction group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where I learned how to perform synchrotron experiments at multiple light source including NSLS, ESRF and the APS. My primary focus during PhD work was on applying known and novel techniques of surface diffraction and coherent diffractive imaging to the study of protein crystals. After some work on large protein crystals surface diffraction at NSLS, most of my efforts shifted to a new beamline at the APS. I participated in the installation and commissioning of this beamline, sector 34ID-C, although I was far from the primary contributor. This nevertheless introduced me to the intricacies of building x-ray beamlines. I then used this beamline for a few years to study the shapes and internal defects of crystals of proteins using newly developed coherent diffractive imaging techniques applied to small crystals. While some successes were achieved, it became clear that limitations exist at synchrotrons due to sample motion and radiation damage. Luckily, as I completed my PhD work in 2005, new light sources were in construction that would remove thee limitations. FLASH in Hamburg and LCLS were soon to come online. I spent a few years at the APS trying to observe shape transforms from protein crystals, with great difficulty, something that LCLS now routinely accomplishes without much effort due to the instantaneous nature of the LCLS measurements.
After completion of my PhD work, I joined SLAC as a Research Associate, with a joint appointment with Uppsala University and Janos Hajdu but spending all my time at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory working with the group of Henry Chapman. We spent a couple of years using FLASH to demonstrate the feasibility of using ultrashort FEL pulses for “diffraction-before-destruction” imaging and developing new tools and techniques for FEL research. -
Keith Bowen
Director, Learning Design Challenge, SAL Digital Learning
BioFor 20+ years, I have worked in the fields of international relief, development, and conflict resolution, building capacity in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, South Africa, Rwanda, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, as well as educating students in the U.S., Europe, and other countries who aspire to work in these fields.
Academics & Film
I've worked as an academic and filmmaker, creating educational documentaries on liberation movements around the world, which I've then used with university students in my classrooms. I've had several programs distributed by the Discovery Channel, which has been rewarding, but what has been especially remarkable to me is the response of my students. I've come to appreciate the power of narrative and immediacy of film to transform students' perceptions of the world and their place in it.
Learning Design
Along with an emphasis on narrative and immediacy, I've designed interactive programs that draw students into learning through exploration and discovery - with a dynamically shifting experience based on student choice and response. I've also designed learning programs featuring advanced multiplayer simulations with both live and online interaction.
Scale
I've taken this work to scale. In my work for the U.S. Government and international humanitarian organizations, I've designed courses that have been completed by tens of thousands of students and practitioners, not only at the State Department, USAID, relief agencies, and universities in the U.S., but also at comparable institutions in other countries, and even in internet cafes and refugee camps around the world. I've earned about a dozen awards for these efforts and have delivered presentations on them for the Under Secretary of State, the Senate Appropriations Committee, representatives of the the 57 countries of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the 35 countries of the Organization for American States, and others.
Virtual Exchange & "Wicked" Global Problems
I am continuing this work at Stanford. My focus now is designing media and technology programs to bring university students in the U.S. and other high-income countries into extended contact with counterpart students in fragile states and zones of conflict to address complex problems that no single country can solve on its own. As students work collaboratively to address these "wicked" problems, we measure advances in learning and shifts in attitude through qualitative and quantitative methods.
I have also launched and serve as Director for the Stanford Learning Design Challenge, which supports students across campus who seek to leverage research in the learning sciences, methodologies in human-centered design, and breakthroughs in emerging technology to change what’s possible in teaching and learning. https://edtech.stanford.edu/
This is an extraordinary time for those who design media and technology solutions for teaching and learning. Blended in smart combinations, especially with traditional in-person learning, the new tools we have are powerful:
- Visual narrative, through its expression in digital cinema
- Expanding and interconnecting networks of lifelong learners
- Complex human interaction, including multiplayer games and simulations
- Complex machine interaction, including generative AI, dynamically responsive to user needs
- Statistical data analysis, upon which to base informed, iterative human-centered design
- Worldwide electronic distribution, especially to inexpensive mobile devices
If we do this right, the world will be much better for it. -
Alison W. Bowers
Research Associate, Environmental Social Sciences
BioAlison Bowers holds a PhD in Educational Research and Evaluation from Virginia Tech. Her background and experience include working as a field-based environmental educator with the Cooperative Extension Service and at the national scale with nonprofit conservation and education organizations. Alison has an EdS in Early Childhood Special Education from George Washington University, a MFRC with a Certificate in Environmental Education and Communication from the University of Florida, and a BA in Psychology from the University of South Carolina. Her research focus is on research design and process and she is particularly interested in research reviews, systematic reviews, and grounded theory methodology.
