Jeff Neaton leads Berkeley Lab's Energy Sciences Area. He is a Senior Faculty Scientist at Berkeley Lab, a Professor of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a member of the Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute at Berkeley. His research involves the development and use of ab initio quantum theory for studies of complex materials and molecular systems with relevance to clean energy and information technology, where he harnesses computational and data science approaches and often works in close collaboration with experiments. A former Director of The Molecular Foundry at Berkeley Lab, and a PECASE awardee, he is a fellow of the American Physical Society and an ISI Highly Cited Researcher.
Jeff can be contacted through ESA Administrator Riyaz Mohammad.
As ESA Deputy, Melissa Summers partners with the Associate Laboratory Director for Energy Sciences to formulate and carry out policy, processes, and scientific strategy to shepherd and grow ESA’s diverse research portfolio, user programs, and infrastructure. Melissa holds a B.A. and a Ph.D. in chemistry and was a Science and Technology Policy Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at the National Science Foundation Office of Legislative and Public Affairs.
As Business Manager in the Energy Sciences Area Office, Marisa leads the administrative and logistical efforts related to the Area's priorities such as LDRD, limited submission funding opportunities, MESA, ASPIRES, Area and Lab-wide working groups, and more. Marisa received her B.S. in microbiology from San Francisco State University and is earning her Masters in Business Administration from Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.
ESA Communications Lead Alison Hatt manages strategic communications functions of the ESA Office, in collaboration with Area leadership and Berkeley Lab’s Strategic Communications Office, among others. Alison holds a B.S. in Physics and a Ph.D. in Materials. Her previous Lab positions include User Program Director at the Molecular Foundry and Communications Specialist in the Materials Sciences Division. She previously worked at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Environmental Molecular Science Laboratory (EMSL) user facility and as a freelance science writer and consultant.
Dimitri Argyriou is an internationally recognized condensed matter physicist who utilizes neutrons and X-rays to understand emergent behavior in complex oxides and novel superconductors. He has worked across scientific areas that include solid state chemistry, crystal growth and theory. He joined the lab from the European Spallation Source where he was Director of Science. Argyriou received his Ph.D. and B.Sc. in Physics from the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), Australia and his habilitation from Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule, Aachen, Germany. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and a recipient of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Prize for his work on multiferroics.
Polly Arnold is a renowned heavy-element chemist who joined Berkeley Lab from the University of Edinburgh where she was the Crum Brown Chair of Chemistry. She is also a Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on advancing our understanding of the bonding and reactivity of heavy elements, the elements of the f-block of the periodic table. Among her many awards and honors, Arnold is a Fellow of the Royal Society, and was awarded the 2012 Rosalind Franklin Award and Order of the British Empire in 2017 for her outstanding contributions to chemistry and women in STEM.
Peter Fischer received his Ph.D. in Physics (Dr.rer.nat.) from the Technical University in Munich, Germany in 1993 on pioneering work with X-ray magnetic circular dichroism in rare earth systems. Since 2004 he has been with the Materials Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley CA. He is a Senior Scientist and Principal Investigator in the Non-Equilibrium Magnetic Materials Program. His research program is focused on the use of polarized synchrotron radiation for the study of fundamental problems in magnetism.
Kristin Persson has established an international reputation in materials science and manages a large and complex research program, working to accelerate the design and development of new materials. She is a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and Director of the Materials Project, a multi-national effort to compute the properties of all inorganic materials and provide the data and associated analysis algorithms free of charge. Persson is the recipient of numerous awards and accolades, and has published over 200 scientific papers. In 2018, she was named a Kavli Fellow and won the Secretary of Energy’s Achievement Award.
