The Berkeley Lab Postdoc Association is an organization run by and for about 1000 postdocs and early career scientists working at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. We organize many activities to strengthen our ties to the Lab, to each other and to the (Berkeley) Bay Area. Our goal is to facilitate social interactions, scientific exchanges, seminars and general orientation.
 
forum@MSD
Seminars

forum@MSD

The forum@MSD series is a new format we’re experimenting in collaboration with the Material Science Division at Berkeley Lab, where we bring a top scientist to introduce a scientific subject, and we let two or three postdocs presenting their research.

The forum is aimed at cultivating collaboration across MSD among early- career scientists. Postdocs, introduced by their PIs, discuss your work in a manner accessible to non-experts. The talks are not be limited to published results, rather the ongoing day-to-day nature of gathering results; topics for discussion include :

  • Nuts and bolts of gathering results
  • Obstacles you encountered – technical or otherwise
  • Dealing with ‘negative results’
  • Topic change from previous work

Our first event on November 9th, 2016 featured Topological Insulators, the topic related to the Nobel Prize this year. Joel Moore gave a theoretical introduction to the subject; young scientists Kenny Gotlieb and Liang Wu shared their research, followed by a hearty discussion !

Kenny Gotlieb presenting his latest results on Topological Insulators
Kenny Gotlieb presenting his latest results on Topological Insulators
This effort follows a desire to build upon the tremendous MSD successes over the past few years (here’s the Energy Sciences strategic plan for 2016 if you want to learn more about the research performed at the lab)