|
|
|
|
News Resources |
Contacts: Diane Greenberg, (631) 344-2347 or Mona S. Rowe, (631) 344-5056 Two Brookhaven Lab Physicists Honored with Presidential Early Career Awards For Scientists and EngineersJune 13, 2005 UPTON, NY - Two physicists from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory - Paul Vaska and Zhangbu Xu - were among 58 researchers honored in Washington, DC today as recipients of the 2004 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. The Presidential Award is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers who are beginning their independent careers. All the Presidential award winners received a citation, a plaque and a commitment for continued funding of their work from their agency for five years. Eight federal departments and agencies support the 58 awardees, of which nine are funded by DOE and its National Nuclear Security Administration. "The Department of Energy is proud that these researchers are making important contributions, in a wide range of fields, to innovation and technology for energy, economic and national security," Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman said. "If the outstanding efforts of these scientists and engineers are any indication of the future, I have no doubt they will ensure America's scientific leadership far into the next century." Vaska and Xu also were among six of the awardees who were presented with DOE's Office of Science Early Career Scientist and Engineer Award in another ceremony at DOE headquarters in Washington, DC.  Paul Vaska (click image to download hi-res version). Paul Vaska's citation recognized him for "his leadership and scientific innovation in the field of medical imaging physics, particularly for the development of novel instrumentation and techniques to improve the capabilities of positron emission tomography in medicine, and for providing research opportunities and being a responsible scientific mentor to students at the high school, undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral levels." Vaska works in Brookhaven's Center for Translational Neuroimaging, where he focuses on the physics aspects of nuclear medicine, specifically, positron emission tomography (PET). PET is a medical imaging method that provides information about how the brain and other organs function. At Brookhaven, PET imaging has been used to study addiction, alcoholism, obesity, and other disorders. Neuroscience using PET imaging of lab animals has particularly benefited from Vaska's work. The rat brain is an important model to help understand human neurobiology, but imaging animals requires general anesthesia to immobilize them and this anesthesia disturbs normal brain function. In collaboration with several Brookhaven scientists, Vaska played a pivotal role in developing a new miniaturized PET scanner, called RatCAP, that a rat can wear while conscious, thus eliminating the effects of anesthesia and enabling new types of animal studies that correlate behavior and neurochemistry. Vaska has also pioneered practical, new gamma-ray detection strategies by developing unique designs and adapting detector technologies from other fields to PET. For example, he is exploring a cadmium-zinc-telluride detector that can provide extremely high spatial resolution, allowing small details to be seen more clearly than possible in conventional PET detectors. In addition, Vaska has been a dedicated mentor to several students, from high school to postdoctoral levels. "With its world-class imaging program and superb capabilities in instrumentation, Brookhaven Lab is the ideal place to carry out this type of research. I'm most grateful that the Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health are willing to fund this important work at the interface of physics and medicine and for the support of my Brookhaven colleagues, particularly Drs. David Schlyer and Craig Woody," Vaska said. After earning a B.S. in physics from Clarkson University in 1989, Vaska earned an M.A. in physics in 1994, and a Ph.D. in nuclear physics in 1997, both from Stony Brook University (SBU). From 1997 to 2000, he was a research physicist at ADAC/UGM Medical Systems, Inc. in Philadelphia, and, in 2000, he was appointed assistant scientist at Brookhaven Lab. He was promoted to associate scientist in 2003, and, in 2004, he became head of PET physics at Brookhaven's Center for Translational Neuroimaging. Since 2001, Vaska also has been an assistant professor at SBU. In 2004, he received the Concorde Microsystems Novel Applications of the Year Award for making improvements in imaging accuracy in certain PET scanners. At Brookhaven, he serves as a principal investigator on research grants from DOE's Office of Biological and Environmental Research and the National Institutes of Health Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering."  Zhangbu Xu (click image to download hi-res version). Zhangbu Xu was recognized "For his novel research techniques and technical developments applied to the search for a new state of matter at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), Brookhaven's world-class accelerator for nuclear physics, and for his mentoring graduate students from the U.S. and collaborating countries at RHIC and leading tours of the accelerator for high school students and the general public." RHIC collides ions head-on at almost the speed of light to create a form of matter that is thought to have existed the first millionth of a second after the Big Bang. Xu has made seminal contributions to the STAR collaboration at RHIC (the Solenoidal Tracker At RHIC) -- one of four major collaborations working at four different detectors at the huge machine. Xu developed research techniques and scientific programs that have resulted in the detection of subatomic particles termed "short-lived resonances" and "open charm" for the first time at RHIC, each of which is useful in studying certain properties of the new state of matter. He also has measured the degree to which the production rates of some particles are suppressed or enhanced in heavy ion collisions, referred to as the "particle-identified Cronin effect." Also, he has played a leading role in advancing methods to identify two additional particle groups with the STAR detector: high-momentum particles and electron pairs. Both of these are penetrating probes of the matter being studied and are of central importance to this research. Furthermore, he has supervised the research of five graduate students at STAR, mentored several undergraduate students, and volunteered to lead tours of RHIC. "I am very fortunate to be working on the RHIC project," Xu said. "It is very exciting to be at the forefront of physics. With upgrades to the facility in the near future, we will be able to study in more detail the properties of the matter fundamental to our understanding of the physical world." Xu earned a B.S. in physics in 1994 from the University of Science and Technology in China, and a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1999 on research he did with experiment E864 at Brookhaven's Alternating Gradient Synchrotron. He stayed on as a postdoctoral researcher at Yale until 2001, when he joined Brookhaven Lab as an assistant physicist in the STAR collaboration. Promotion to associate physicist came in 2003. Xu has co-convened a STAR physics working group studying the chemical and thermal properties of the dense matter formed at RHIC and a cross-collaboration working group on electromagnetic probes with the upcoming upgrades to RHIC. Related Links
Number: 05-65 | BNL Media & Communications Office |
|
|
Get BNL News via RSS
