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.
 
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Hiking: Montara Mountain, Black Diamond Mines and Mount Sizer

In May, the BLPA hiking group was extraordinarily active. On May 4, which was one of the last rainy days this spring, we climbed Montara Mountain on the Pacific coast near San Francisco. On sunny May 12 and 18, we explored Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve and Henry W. Coe …

Zymergen Site Visit

On May 14th, the Lab-Industry Network Connection (LINC) organized the first company site visit to directly experience their working culture. A group of 20 postdocs from LBNL had the honor to visit the Zymergen headquarters. Our host Silas Carleton, senior recruiter at Zymergen, welcomed us and kicked off the visit …

Postdoc to Postdoc: a peer-to-peer mentoring conversation!

We launched a new peer-to-peer mentoring activity! Last Wednesday, Louise Lassalle, a postdoc in the Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging Division, shared her personal experience with the green-card application process. Do you have an idea for the postdoc-to-postdoc talk topic? Do you want to share your personal experience? Contact us! …

LINC launch

We are thrilled to announce the launch of BLPA’s latest initiative for advancing postdoc careers: the Lab-Industry Networking Connection, a platform designed to introduce postdocs to careers beyond academia, and importantly, facilitate networking with industry partners. Postdocs possess invaluable skills that can be used in several sectors, which is why …

Laurel Wright, Ph.D

Scientist, Zymergen Laurel Wright is a Scientist in the Data Science group at Zymergen in Emeryville, where she builds statistical and AI tools that support Zymergen’s high-throughput screening platform.  Since joining Zymergen in 2016, Laurel has worked has a technical and business scoping lead for several client projects, and as …

Paul Ashby, Ph.D

Staff Scientist, Molecular Foundry, Berkeley Lab Co-Founder, Scuba Probe Technologies Paul Ashby came to Berkeley Lab in 2003 as a postdoc in the Imaging and Manipulation of Nanostructures Facility at the Molecular Foundry and he successfully transitioned to a Staff Scientist position there in 2007. His group works on designing …

Diego Scarabelli, Ph.D

System Engineer and Data Scientist, Cerebras Systems After completing his Ph.D. in Applied Physics at Columbia University, Diego Scarabelli joined Rigetti Computing as a Quantum Engineer leading the Qubit Microfabrication Team. There, he contributed to designing and testing iterative architectural improvements, and developed control software and data analysis code base. …