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Natalie RoeAssociate Laboratory Director for Physical Sciences |
Berkeley Lab’s Associate Laboratory Director for Physical Sciences champions the highly-accomplished research divisions in accelerator technology, engineering, nuclear science, particle physics and cosmology. Appointed ALD in July 2020, Natalie Roe received her PhD in Physics in 1989 from Stanford University. She joined the Lab as a postdoctoral fellow and held positions as Staff Scientist, Senior Scientist and Physics Division Director prior to taking on the ALD role. Roe has developed advanced instrumentation for her research in particle physics, and more recently for cosmology experiments designed to study dark energy and the early universe. As Director of the Physics Division, Roe oversaw an expansion of research into dark matter, dark energy and quantum information science. Roe is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society, and has served as president of the APS Division of Particles and Fields, as well as numerous national and international advisory committees. She was a founding member of Berkeley Lab’s Women Scientists and Engineers Council (WSEC) and is an executive sponsor of the Lab’s Early Career Employee Resource Group.
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Cameron GeddesDivision Director, Accelerator Technology & Applied Physics Division |
Cameron Geddes, an award-winning scientist known internationally for his work on laser-plasma accelerators, is Division Director, Accelerator Technology & Applied Physics Division.
Geddes earned his PhD in physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 2005. His graduate work was recognized with the APS-DPP’s Marshall N. Rosenbluth Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award, as well as the Hertz Foundation Dissertation Prize. Further recognition for his achievements has included the U.S. Particle Accelerator School Prize, the American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics (APS-DPP) John Dawson Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research, and Fellowship in the APS.
Before his appointment as Division Director, Geddes served as the Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator (BELLA) Center’s Deputy Center Director for Experiments. He oversaw the diverse experimental portfolio within the BELLA Center, which develops plasma accelerators to extend the energy frontier of future high-energy physics experiments and for photon sources and applications. He most recently led the creation of a quasi-monoenergetic gamma-ray source that can bring new capabilities to nuclear security applications (as well as medical and industrial imaging) based on compact laser-plasma accelerators. He continues to serve as leader of the Laser-Plasma Accelerator Applications Group within the BELLA Center, as well as the next-generation kBELLA initiative.
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Henrik von der LippeDivision Director, Engineering Division |
Henrik von der Lippe was appointed Engineering Division Director in the Physical Sciences Area on March 30, 2016. He is also the Authority Having Jurisdiction for Safe Electrical Equipment, and manages the Electrical Equipment Safety Program at LBNL.
As Engineering Division Director, Henrik von der Lippe is responsible for aligning and deploying the Division’s unique design, technical fabrication, mechanical and electrical engineering, integrated circuit, and operational expertise with the scientific objectives and strategic priorities of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. There are over 230 skilled and experienced employees contributing to significant advancements in scientific instrumentation, research, and development.
Throughout his career of more than 15 years at the LBNL, von der Lippe has served in a number of technical and organizational leadership roles in the Engineering Division. Before assuming his current role as Division Director, Mr. von der Lippe was the Department Head for Electronics, Software & Instrumentation Engineering. Henrik von der Lippe is distinguished by unique achievements in custom integrated circuit (IC) design, and has led the IC group at Berkeley Lab since 2000.
Von der Lippe received a Master of Science degree in Electronic Engineering with a concentration in IC design from the University of Oslo in Norway. Prior to working at Berkeley Lab, von der Lippe fulfilled a number of engineering and managerial roles at Tandberg Data ASA and SINTEF in Oslo, Norway.
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Reiner KrueckenDivision Director, Nuclear Science Division |
Reiner Kruecken, an internationally renowned nuclear physicist, was appointed Division Director of the LBNL Nuclear Science Division in June 2022.
Kruecken’s primary research focuses on the structure and dynamics of atomic nuclei, both in the laboratory and in space. Before his appointment as LBNL Division Director, Kruecken served as Deputy Director for Research at TRIUMF, Canada’s particle accelerator center, and held a joint faculty appointment at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver. He held leading roles in large international collaborations, e.g. NuSTAR at the FAIR facility in Germany, and major projects such as most recently the Advanced Rare Isotope Laboratory (ARIEL) at TRIUMF. Kruecken received his doctorate in nuclear physics from the University of Cologne, Germany, in 1995, working on gamma-ray spectroscopy. He followed that up with a postdoctoral research position at Berkeley Lab from 1995 to 1997, studying nuclear physics using the Gammasphere detector. Since then, he has worked across a broad spectrum of nuclear science, including exotic nuclei and nuclear astrophysics, neutrinoless double beta-decay, heavy-ion collisions, and applied nuclear physics. Over the course of his career, he has held faculty positions at Yale, the Technical University of Munich before joining TRIUMF and UBC in 2011. |
Nathalie Palanque-DelabrouilleDivision Director, Physics Division |
Nathalie Palanque-Delabrouille, a cosmologist, was appointed Division Director of the LBNL Physics Division in August 2021, following an international search.
Palanque-Delabrouille’s research focuses on the study of dark matter and dark energy, and she has played instrumental roles in several international collaborations throughout her career. She received her Ph.D. jointly from the University of Chicago and University of Paris-Diderot in 1997, contributing to the EROS search for dark matter objects using microlensing. She has also conducted research on the Astronomy with a Neutrino Telescope and Abyss environmental Research (ANTARES) undersea neutrino experiment, the SuperNova Legacy Survey (SNLS), and the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), where she co-led the target selection group and carried out an analysis on the Lyman-alpha forest, which put constraints on the sum of the neutrino masses. While working on BOSS in 2013 and 2014, she spent a year as a visiting researcher at Berkeley Lab. She is currently a member of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) collaboration and has served as the DESI co-spokesperson since 2018. Prior to her appointment as Physics Division Director, she was a research director at the Institute for Research on the Fundamental Laws of the Universe at the CEA Paris-Saclay research center.
In 2020, Palanque-Delabrouille was elected to the French Academy of Sciences. She is also a Chevalier (Knight) of the French Legion of Honor and recipient of the 2017 Irene Joliot-Curie award for Woman Scientist from the French Academy of Sciences. Palanque-Delabrouille is also well known for her scientific outreach, including participating in many science cafes, radio and television broadcasts, podcasts, and scientific festivals.