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Swapan Chattopadhyay appointed to the UK’s first Chair of Accelerator Physics
and to be the Inaugural Director of The Cockcroft Institute
Daresbury, UK, November 15: The Universities of Liverpool, Manchester and
Lancaster have appointed Swapan Chattopadhyay to the Sir John Cockcroft Chair of
Physics. The three universities have together created this new Chair, the first
such joint chair in Accelerator Physics in the UK. Chattopadhyay’s appointment
is to be held concurrently with the position of Inaugural Director of The
Cockcroft Institute
from March 19th 2007. He will also serve as a principal member of the steering
committees for the flagship, “fourth generation”, light source, 4GLS, which is
now in preparation at the Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus. The Cockcroft
Institute of Accelerator Science and Technology is a joint venture of the three
universities with the UK Research Councils PPARC and CCLRC, and with the North
West Development Agency (NWDA).
Swapan Chattopadhyay is currently Associate Director at the Thomas Jefferson
National Accelerator Facility, USA. He is internationally recognized for
pioneering work in the physics and technology of particle beams and photon
science. His achievements have included major contributions to phase space
cooling, to innovative particle colliders, to novel synchrotron-radiation
production, and to the generation of ultra-short, femtosecond, X-ray sources.
His contributions also include the establishment of innovative education and
training in Accelerator Physics and Engineering, and successful industrial
collaboration. He has a strong interest in, and has contributed to, the history
of physics, to physics education, and to international collaboration through
science. He serves on various executive, advisory and editorial boards of the
American, European and Asian Physical Societies and Research Councils, the US
Department of Energy, the International Committee for Future Accelerators (ICFA),
professional journals, and national and international review committees. He
recently ended his term on the Advisory Board of the Governor of the State of
Virginia for the Virginia Biotechnology Initiative, 2001-2005, and has just been
elected to serve for a term of four years 2007-2010 as the Vice-Chair,
Chair-Elect, Chair and Past-Chair of the American Physical Society’s Division of
Physics of Beams. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, and the UK Institute of Physics. He
has received many awards and distinctions from institutions, professional
societies and governments worldwide in his roles as researcher, mentor, scholar
and lecturer. Chattopadhyay quotes more than 100 refereed articles in
professional journals, and he is frequently invited to speak at international
conferences.
Born and educated in Darjeeling and Calcutta in India as a National Scholar and
National Science Talent Scholar until completion of his BSc (Calcutta
University) and MSc ( Indian Institute of Technology), Chattopadhyay received
his PhD in Physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1982 under
the tutelage of Joseph Bisognano and Owen Chamberlain. He then continued at CERN
as an “attaché scientifique” in the Super Proton Antiproton Synchrotron working
with Daniel Boussard, Simon van der Meer and Carlo Rubbia, developing the early
ideas for the stochastic cooling of bunched beams, which led to the discovery of
the W and Z vector bosons at CERN, and which today are being applied
successfully to phase space cooling of heavy ions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion
Collider at Brookhaven. He returned to Berkeley Lab in 1984, where he led and
defined the accelerator physics of the Advanced Light Source (ALS) and the
Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), where he pioneered the accelerator physics
which underpinned the Berkeley-Stanford asymmetric B-factory (PEP-II) for
CP-violation studies, and where he initiated the Berkeley FEL/Femtosecond X-ray
Source and Laser-Plasma Acceleration development. He was a Senior Scientist, a
Guest Professor, and the Founder/Director of the Center for Beam Physics at
Berkeley, until his move to Jefferson Lab in 2001 after 25 years at the
University of California and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.
In his tenure since 2001 at Jefferson Lab as its Associate Director,
Chattopadhyay has restructured the lab creating two centres of excellence which
focus on the emerging technologies underpinning future accelerator development –
the Center for Advanced Studies of Accelerators (CASA), and the Institute for
Superconducting Radio-Frequency Science and Technology (ISRFST). He has recently
initiated first steps in the creation of a third center in advanced cryogenics.
Under his guidance and leadership, Jefferson Lab has developed electron beams of
unprecedented precision as probes of hadronic matter, has risen to become the
leading centre in the research, development and implementation of
superconducting Radio Frequency cavities, which are now operating in the Oak
Ridge Spallation Neutron Source and which are foreseen for the International
Linear Collider, and has further developed the technology of “energy recovery”
in linacs to the extent that they now can be contemplated in “fourth generation”
systems such as 4GLS now under development at Daresbury.
Professor Chattopadhyay commented on his appointments: “I am honoured to be
appointed to the Sir John Cockcroft Chair, and to be invited to take the
Directorship of the Cockcroft Institute. The creation of the Institute by the
three universities in partnership with PPARC, CCLRC, and the NWDA, is most
opportune as the world moves into gear for the challenges of particle
accelerators in the 21st century. Accelerator Science continues to grow as a
cornerstone for progress in physical and life science, and in advanced
technology. It poses major new challenges in the future, which, when solved,
will open fantastic new horizons and opportunities for science and its
application, and thereby for the progress of humankind. I applaud the vision,
commitment, courage and foresight of the founders in launching the Institute. I
am impressed by the determination of all concerned with the proposal to build
the revolutionary new light source 4GLS at Daresbury, and the scientific
challenges and opportunities which it will bring. I look forward in the future
to working with the staff in the Institute on global projects, with the 4GLS
team, and with many colleagues worldwide from my new base at the Cockcroft
Institute.”
Professor John Dainton FRS, Founding Director and Sir James Chadwick Professor
of Physics at the University of Liverpool said: “Swapan Chattopadhyay brings to
the Cockcroft Institute immense scientific distinction and experience in
Accelerator Physics. He is a world leader in his field with a proven track
record at the ‘cutting edge’. He has been a constant source of advice and
inspiration as we have faced the challenge of launching the Institute as an
international centre of excellence. I am delighted that he has accepted the
invitation to come to the Institute. As he assumes the responsibilities of
Director, I look forward to working with him on the exciting and growing
developments possible in international science, taking full advantage of the
major expansion underway at the three research-led universities and the
Daresbury Laboratory. When coupled with the investment of the NWDA and the
research councils, NW England, together with the rest of the UK, is further
enhancing its reputation as one of, if not the, most exciting places for
scientific research in the world.”
Professor Mike Poole, Director of CCLRC ASTeC, remarked: “Attracting such a
world-leading accelerator expert to the Cockcroft Institute is a major coup for
the UK. It illustrates the gathering strength of our national initiatives in
Accelerator Science. Swapan Chattopadhyay will have a major impact on all of our
accelerator R&D programmes, and I look forward to a close working relationship
with him, with further reinforcement of the important links between CCLRC and
the universities.”
Professor Elaine Seddon, 4GLS Project leader, commented: “As an innovative
thinker with a deep understanding of fundamental science, of cutting-edge
technical issues, and of the broad picture, Swapan Chattopadhyay is a superb
appointment as Inaugural Director of The Cockcroft Institute. The 4GLS team is
designing a world-leading accelerator that will tackle some of the pivotal
scientific issues of our time. I’m looking forward to working very closely with
Professor Chattopadhyay, and I’m sure that a very productive time lies ahead as
we face the challenges of realising 4GLS.”
Professor Ken Peach, Director of the John Adams Institute at the University of
Oxford and Royal Holloway, University of London, which, together with the
Cockcroft Institute, provides the main focus for the new expansion of R&D in
Accelerator Science and Technology underway in the UK, said “This is very
exciting and welcome news, and strengthens enormously the UK's renewed
Accelerator Science programme. I look forward to working with Swapan, who has
twice given seminars to the John Adams Institute, to pursue the development and
use of accelerators for the benefit of science and society.”
Welcoming the news of the appointment, Professor Robert Aymar, Director General
of CERN, said: “I am excited and very pleased by the appointment of
Chattopadhyay as Inaugural Director of The Cockcroft Institute, and I look
forward to important and significant collaboration in the years to come to the
benefit of science in Europe and the rest of the world”.
The Universities of Liverpool, Manchester and Lancaster, together can lay
historical claim to twenty eight Nobel Prize winners amongst their staff and
students. A major contributor to this distinction is in research with particle
accelerators. Following the discovery of the atomic nucleus in Manchester by
Lord Rutherford, physicists from NW England (notably the Nobel Laureates John
Cockcroft and James Chadwick) together with NW industry, were central to the
“splitting of the atom” and to the discovery of the neutron in Cambridge.
Subsequently, after one of the first synchronous RF particle accelerators in the
world was built and operated in Liverpool by Chadwick and co-workers, physicists
from Manchester and Liverpool were instrumental in the creation of the European
Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva, CERN, of the Rutherford Laboratory,
and then, with Lancaster University, of the Daresbury Laboratory. All three
universities, together with colleagues at Daresbury Lab, now have groups working
at the forefront of particle, nuclear, atomic, and molecular physics at
accelerator laboratories worldwide.
The creation by these universities of the Cockcroft Institute, its growing role
as an international centre of excellence in Accelerator Science and Technology
situated on the Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus, and the appointment of
someone with the distinction and experience of Swapan Chattopadhyay to the new
Sir John Cockcroft Chair, are thus a further milestone in the development and
enhancement of the on-going excellence of science and engineering in NW England,
its global impact, and its importance for regional and national economic
development in the UK.
The Cockcroft Institute was recently opened in its new building on the Daresbury
Campus by the UK Minister of Science, Lord Sainsbury.
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