From: Eric Isaacs, Director, Argonne National Laboratory

With mixed feelings, I announce that Murray Gibson will be leaving Argonne, effective Oct. 1, 2010, to accept a newly created position as Dean of Sciences at Northeastern University in Boston. As founding dean, he will draw from his deep experience and expertise to build and grow a new College of Science that combines 10 existing programs and schools. Part of me is delighted that Murray will have this great opportunity to shape and grow the university's already excellent science programs; but I also know how much Argonne will miss him and his leadership.

On a personal note, I will miss my daily interactions with Murray. I have known him since my early days at Bell Labs.

Please join me in thanking Murray for all he has done for the laboratory. He first came to Argonne in 1999 as Director of our Materials Science Division. While MSD Director, he was instrumental in the early stages of a nanoscience initiative that ultimately led to our Center for Nanoscale Materials. He was also key in starting the Transmission Electron Aberration-corrected Microscope (TEAM) collaboration with Brookhaven, Oak Ridge and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Since becoming Associate Laboratory Director for the Advanced Photon Source in 2001, the APS has increased the number of annual refereed publications from about 500 to more than 1,000, increased the number of users from about 2,000 to more than 3,500, grown the number of operational beamlines from 27 to 62, and raised its operational availability to a remarkable 98.6 percent. During that period, the number of beamlines operated directly by APS increased from seven to more than 30. The APS is the now by far the most productive facility in the world in protein crystallography and high-pressure science.  Moreover, we owe Murray a debt of gratitude for leading us to CD-0 approval for the APS Upgrade.

We plan to immediately form a committee to search for his successor.

The Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory is one of five national synchrotron radiation light sources supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences (DOE-BES). The APS is the source of the Western Hemisphere’s brightest high-energy x-ray beams for research in virtually every scientific discipline. More than 3,500 scientists representing universities, industry, and academic institutions from every U.S. state and several foreign nations visit the APS each year to carry out applied and basic research in support of the BES mission to understand, predict, and ultimately control matter and energy at the electronic, atomic, and molecular levels in order to provide the foundations for new energy technologies and to support DOE missions in energy, environment, and national security. To learn more about the Office of Basic Energy Sciences and its x-ray user facilities. Use of the APS was supported by the DOE-BES, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.

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