In-Person
  Rosen Auditorium (TA-53, Bldg 0001)
 
Thursday,  Oct 20,  2022
3:45 – 4:45 pm (MT)
  Light refreshments  3:15 - 3:45 pm

 
Webex
https://lanl-us.webex.com/lanl-us/j.php?MTID=m69e70ee814373df888942a5ee4066d47


Speaker: Dr. Michael R. Furlanetto
                       Senior Director and LANSCE User Facility Director, Associate Laboratory Directorate for Physical Sciences                  
                    
“LANSCE Enters Middle Age”
 
Abstract: 
 
The Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) accelerator recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, and its data will be needed for at least the next thirty years. LANSCE began as the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility, where it made important advances in the study of pions, neutrinos, and medium-energy nuclear physics. Today, LANSCE provides dynamic radiography, materials science, and nuclear physics data for the weapons program. These experimental areas also support nuclear criticality safety, the nuclear energy program, and even paleontology. Elsewhere at LANSCE, crucial medical and industrial isotopes are produced, radiation effects are quantified, and precision nuclear and particle physics data are collected. I will discuss some of the storied history of LANSCE, describe our efforts to sustain the accelerator and experimental facilities for the coming decades, and our plans for experimental enhancements.

Bio:

Dr. Michael R. Furlanetto is the User Facility Director for LANL’s flagship LANSCE particle accelerator, where he is responsible for both the user program and the overall health of the accelerator and the science it produces. Additionally, Mike co-leads LANL’s Nuclear and Particle Futures capability pillar, which stewards accelerator science and technology, applied nuclear science and engineering, high energy density plasma science, fluid mechanics, nuclear and particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology for the Laboratory. He also leads Los Alamos efforts toward facility investments meeting the Dynamic Mesoscale Material Science Capability need.
 
Dr. Michael R. Furlanetto has worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory since 2004. He arrived as an Agnew National Security Fellow in Physics Division to develop new phase transition diagnostics for shock experiments. He then worked in diagnostic development, with a particular focus on the application of velocimetry on subcritical high-explosive-driven plutonium experiments, and in hydrocode modeling of focused and integrated experiments. Mike served as a diagnostic physicist on several subcritical experiment series and was the diagnostic coordinator for the Gemini series, which demonstrated the value of multiplexed velocimetry for increased understanding of early-implosion hydrodynamics. In 2015, he moved to the X-Theoretical Design Division to become the subcritical experiment program manager. In 2017, Mike became the Deputy Program Director for the Office of Experimental Sciences, where he oversaw stockpile-related experimental research in nuclear physics, material science, high-energy-density physics, and implosion hydrodynamics. He also served as LANL’s point-of-contact for nuclear test readiness.
 
Before LANL, Mike received a B.A. in chemistry and history from Williams College and a M.A. in the history and philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge. He received his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of California – Berkeley, where he studied the transition states of chemical reactions with laser spectroscopy. After Berkeley, he did postdoctoral research with Dr. Russell Hemley of the Carnegie Institution of Washington as a Carnegie Fellow, performing research on high-pressure chemistry and physics in diamond anvil cells.