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Nuclear & Plasma Sciences Society

Awards

I’m happy to report that the 2021 NPSS Society Awards have been decided. This year we have 12 winners, which have been chosen by the NPSS Awards Committee consisting of all eight Technical Chairs, plus two subcommittees for the Barker Award and the Knoll Awards. Big congratulations to all winners also from my side. We had very strong nominations, and it was not an easy job. This year we also awarded for the first time the new IEEE NPSS Edward J. Hoffman Early Career Development Grant, which just recently has been established through the IEEE Foundation. You will find below the biographies of all 2021 award winners. I encourage you to read one or the other. If you know a colleague or student who is as outstanding as one of our winners, please consider nominating her or him for our 2022 round of awards, which has a deadline of January 31st, 2022. All the application forms can be found on the IEEE NPSS web site at https://ieee-npss.org/awards/npss-awards/.

Stefan Ritt, Chair of the IEEE NPSS Awards Committee, can be reached by E-mail at stefan.ritt@psi.ch.

 

Merit Award

Dr. Ron Schrimpf is the Orrin Henry Ingram Professor of Engineering and Director of the Institute for Space and Defense Electronics at Vanderbilt University. He received his B.E.E., M.S.E.E., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Minnesota and was a professor at the University of Arizona for ten years, before joining Vanderbilt in 1996. His research is related to semiconductor devices, particularly radiation effects and reliability. The projects on which he works include semiconductor-device design and simulation, atomic-scale analysis of radiation-induced defects, application and development of design and simulation tools for radiation effects, total-dose and single-event effects in electronic devices and circuits, and development of radiation-effects and hardness-assurance test methodologies. Ron has received three of Vanderbilt’s highest awards: the Chancellor’s Cup (given for “the greatest contribution outside the classroom to undergraduate student-faculty relationships in the recent past”), the Harvey Branscomb Distinguished Professor Award (given “to recognize, and thereby to encourage in others, that combination of talents and achievements which we identify as desirable in the University faculty member: creative scholarship; stimulating and inspiring teaching which results in learning of a high order; and service to students, colleagues, the University at large, and society at large”, and the Chancellor’s Award for Research (recognizing excellence in research, scholarship, or creative expression). He has served as the President of the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society, Chair of the Radiation Effects Steering Group, and Chair of the Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects Conference. He received the NPSS Early Achievement Award and was elected a Fellow of the IEEE in 2000. Ron was the first Faculty Head of House for Memorial House in Vanderbilt’s residential college program for first-year students: The Martha Rivers Ingram Commons. As one of the founding Heads of House, he was involved in defining the direction of the first-year experience at Vanderbilt, which has been recognized nationally. As part of the Commons experience, Ron led and resided in Memorial House with his wife, Kathy, and eighty first-year students.

Citation: For contributions to the understanding of radiation effects in semiconductor devices and integrated circuits.

Richard F. Shea Award

Dr. Craig Woody is a Senior Physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He received his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. from John Hopkins University in 1973, 1974 and 1978, respectively. He carried out his thesis research in high energy particle physics at the SLAC National Accelerator LAboratory, and after one year as a postdoc at Stanford, he joined Brookhaven Lab in 1979 where he has remained ever since. His interests are mainly in developing detectors for nuclear and particle physics and he has also worked on several projects in medical imaging. He is an IEEE Fellow and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He has served on AdCom in numerous capacities since 2004, including as NPSS President from 2009-2010, as an elected member from RITC from 2006-2008 and 2018-2021, as Nominations Chair from 2011-2012, and as Awards Chair from 2013-2016. He has also served on the IEEE Technical Activities Board Awards and Recognition Committee (TABARC) from 2011-2016, and served as TABARC Chair and a member of the IEEE Awards Board from 2014-2015. He has served several times on RISC, from 2001-2003 and again from 2013-2015, and as RISC Chair from 2004-2005. He also served on the RISC/NMISC Joint Oversight Committee from 2009-2014 and as the Joint Oversight Committee Chair from 2006-2008. He has been a regular attendee of the NSS/MIC for more than 45 years and served many times as a convener, session chair, reviewer and Short Course instructor. He was General Chair of the 1998 NSS/MIC in Toronto, Deputy NSS Chair in 1997 in Albuquerque, Treasurer in 2007 in Hawaii, Workshop Chair in 2016 in Strasbourg, NSS Co-Chair for the 2018 NSS/MIC in Sydney and again as NSS Co-Chair in 2021 which was originally planned for Yokohama.

Citation: For outstanding contributions and service to NPSS over many years in the fields of radiation instrumentation and medical imaging, and for leadership roles in the Nuclear Science Symposium, RISC, AdCom and TAB.

 

Early Achievement Award

Dr. Andre Kyme received his B.S. in Physics from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, in 2001, M.S. in Physics from the University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia, in 2004, and Ph.D in Physics from the University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia, in 2012. He is currently a senior lecturer in the School of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Sydney. After completing a Cassen Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of California Davis from 2014-16, Dr Kyme returned to the University of Sydney where he now leads a research group in biomedical imaging. His research focuses on developing enabling technologies for motion tracking and correction in medical imaging, MRI-compatible robotics for imaging and therapy applications, and artificial-intelligence-based image analytics and quantification.

Dr. Kyme receives the 2021 NPSS Early Achievement Award for contributions to motion tracking and correction in emission computed tomography and the development of methods enabling preclinical imaging of awake, freely moving animals. He solved a series of major technical challenges, including the development of motion tracking methods with submillimetre accuracy and high sampling rates, handling refraction of multidirectional optical motion tracking signals, and demonstrating the practicality of marker-free tracking using computer vision methods adapted from field robotics. His work has won numerous awards but more importantly has opened up new research applications for small animal PET in the neurosciences. Dr Kyme is currently working with the University of Sydney and UC Davis teams to develop a high-resolution DOI-enabled “open-field” brain PET scanner with integrated motion tracking for simultaneous imaging and behavioral studies on freely moving mice.

Citation: For contributions to motion tracking and correction in emission computed tomography and the development of methods that enable preclinical imaging of awake, freely moving animals.

 

IEEE Magne “Kris” Kristiansen Award for Contributions to Experimental Nuclear and Plasma Science

Dr. Frank Hegeler works at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), in Washington, DC, where is serves as Head of the Pulsed Energy Technology Section in the Plasma Physics Division. He received a Diploma in Electrical Engineering from the Fachhochschule Wilhelmshaven, Germany, in 1989, and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Texas Tech University in 1991 and 1995, respectively. He was a Visiting Associate Professor at Kumamoto University, Kumamoto, Japan, from 1995-1997, and a Postdoctoral Researcher and then a Research Assistant Professor at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, from 1997-2000, before joining NRL in 2000. His areas of expertise are in repetitive pulsed-power systems, electromagnetic launchers, excimer lasers, electron beam generation and propagation, high-power microwave sources, plasma diagnostics, nonthermal atmospheric-pressure plasma reactors, and high voltage dielectric breakdown. He has authored or coauthored more than 100 publications.

Frank is a Senior Member of IEEE, and he has been volunteering in the NPSS and Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Society (DEIS) communities for many years. He served as the General Chair of the 2010 International Power-Modulator and High-Voltage Conference (IPMHVC), as DEIS Vice-President in 2012-2013, President from 2014-2015, and Past-President from 2016-2017, Associate Editor of the TDEI from 2007-2017, IPMHVC Executive Committee Vice Chair from 2014-2018 and Chair since 2019, NPSS Pulsed Power Science and Technology Technical Committee Member from 2017-2020, NPSS Ad-Com Member at-Large from 2018-2021, IEEE TPS Senior Editor of the Electromagnetic Launch Topic since 2018, and as Treasurer of the upcoming 2023 Pulsed Power Conference.

Citation: For critical contributions to the development and application of high-power, repetitively pulsed, electron-beam and pulsed-power systems. 

 

Edward J. Hoffman Early Career Development Grant

Dr. Émilie Gaudin is a postdoctoral researcher currently working at the Sherbrooke Molecular Imaging Centre of Université de Sherbrooke, QC, Canada under the supervision of Prof. Roger Lecomte and Réjean Fontaine, in collaboration with Prof. Georges El Fakhri of the Gordon Center for Medical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. She received a B.Sc. degree in Physics from Université de Nantes, France, in 2012 and travelled to Canada to complete an M.Sc. in Medical Physics at Université Laval, in 2014 and a Ph.D. in Radiation Sciences and Biomedical Imaging at Université de Sherbrooke, QC, Canada in 2020.

Her research focuses on the development of the LabPET II technology, a positron emission tomography (PET) detection platform featuring truly pixelated detectors with individual readout electronics, which was designed to become a generic building block for high-resolution PET scanners from mouse to human brain. The next challenge Émilie wants to address with the NPSS Edward J. Hoffman Early Career Development Grant is to implement ultra-fast detectors in an updated version of the LabPET II platform to improve small lesion detectability in the human brain.

Émilie has presented her research work at every IEEE NSS/MIC meeting since 2015. She has already published eight peer-reviewed papers, four NSS/MIC conference proceedings and over thirty-five conference presentations. She received four international awards for best oral or poster presentations at SNMMI, WMIC and NSS/MIC, and two IEEE NPSS Paul Phelps Continuing Education Grants for recognition of contributions to the fields of nuclear and plasma sciences.

 

Glenn F. Knoll Postdoctoral Award

Dr. Luis Stand received his Ph.D. in Energy Science and Engineering in 2018 from the Bredesen Center at the University of Tennessee, where he specialized in the crystal growth and characterization of scintillator materials for radiation detection applications. He is now a post-doctoral research associate in the Scintillation Material Research Center at the University of Tennessee, where he discovers and develops new scintillator materials for medical imaging and national security applications.  Dr. Stand currently has 40+ publications, and at this time holds ten issued patents, with several additional U.S. patent applications pending.  He has been, among other things, the driving force behind the invention and development of the new scintillator, europium doped KSr2I5 – an exceptionally proportional, high light yield scintillator with some of the best energy resolution ever measured in a scintillator.

  

Glenn F. Knoll Graduate Student Award

Michael Hua is from the University of Michigan’s Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences. He established the IEEE NPSS student branch chapter at the University of Michigan and is involved in numerous outreach efforts for elementary, middle, and high school students. He researches neutron noise measurements for nuclear nonproliferation and safeguards, criticality safety, and fundamental data. In addition to being a Fellow of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program for his Ph.D. studies, Michael is an associate of the Consortium for Verification Technology, and the Consortium for Monitoring, Technology, and Verification.

 

Robert J Barker Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Pulsed Power Applications

Zachary Shaw received his Bachelor’s (2015) and Master’s (2017) degrees from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX, and will graduate this May (2021) with his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the same institution. Mr. Shaw has conducted research at The Center for Pulsed Power and Power Electronics since 2015 under Dr. Andreas Neuber on pulsed power and high-power microwave topics. Current research interests include microwave-plasma interaction, the multipactor effect, physical layer encryption via pulsed antenna arrays, and the effects of internal fields within structures experiencing lightning attachment. His most recent body of work centers on multipactor formation within rectangular waveguide structures at S and X-Band frequencies; an AFOSR sponsored MURI program administered through Michigan State University. The multipactoring electrons were directly detected with high temporal resolution via a custom-designed Electron Multiplier Tube (EMT) setup. It was found that the field distribution within the waveguide structures in the dominant TE10 mode allows for multipactor to occur even at high input powers (upwards of 4 MW with a 5.5 mm test gap). As the power increases, multipactor conducive regions are pushed towards the sidewalls of the waveguide structure such that the second crossover point of secondary electron emission from the waveguide walls becomes essentially meaningless in practical applications. Mr. Shaw currently has his sights set on moving into linear induction accelerator technology as he transitions into the professional world and holds this award as a high point in his early career.

 

NPSS Graduate Scholarship Awards

Sneha Banerjee received the B.S. degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from West Bengal University of Technology, India, in 2012 and the M.S degree in Radio Physics and Electronics from the University of Calcutta, India, in 2015. She is pursuing her PhD degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Michigan State University. Her current research interests include quantum tunnelling in metal-insulator-metal junctions, electron emission, and contact engineering.

She is a recipient of Michigan Institute of Plasma Science and Engineering (MIPSE) Graduate Fellowship Award in 2020-2021, the 2020 MIPSE Graduate Student Symposium Best Presentation Award, and the 2020-2021 Michigan State University Electrical Engineering Outstanding Graduate Student Award. Sneha was also the Founder of IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society Student Chapter at Michigan State University (Feb 2020) and serves as the President since its creation.

Matthew Durbin has been awarded a 2021 IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society (NPSS) Graduate Scholarship Award for his research contributions to the radiation detection community. Matt graduated with a B.S. in Physics from the University of Texas at Austin in 2017 and he is now working towards his Ph.D. in the Ken and Mary Alice Lindquist Department of Nuclear Engineering at Penn State University. His research is focused on data analysis methods, primarily for directional gamma-ray detection. He has assembled an NaI-based detector array and has implemented machine learning algorithms to analyze the data. His work on feature engineering is leading to improved angular resolution and is also impacting other applications, such as pulse-shape discrimination. Several of his analysis methods have already been made available to the community for use through GitHub. His work has been presented in three peer-reviewed journal publications and eight conference proceedings as a first author. He has also co-authored two publications and several additional conference proceedings. Matt was awarded the Valentin T. Jordanov grant to attend the 2019 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference.

Mariia Gorchichko received the Specialist Degree from the National Research Nuclear University “MEPhI” in Moscow, Russia, in 2016, and her Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Vanderbilt University in 2019. From 2014-2017, she was a Trainee, Engineering Technician, and Research Engineer with JSC Russian Space Systems, Moscow, Russia. In these positions, she developed a FPGA-based bus controller, designed and performed gamma-irradiation tests, and developed and calibrated SPICE models and macro-models to account for the effects of total-ionizing-dose (TID) effects on microelectronics for use in space systems. During her Master’s and Ph.D. research at Vanderbilt, Mariia has performed original studies of the TID response, low-frequency noise, and random-telegraph noise of MOS devices with complex architectures and nanoscale dimensions. Mariia has been author or co-author of eight peer-reviewed journal articles. Mariia has presented her work at several international conferences, including the IEEE Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects Conference (NSREC), and was co-author of the Outstanding Student Paper of the 2019 NSREC.

George N. Tzintzarov received the Bachelor’s and Master’s of Science degrees in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2016 and 2020, where he is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering. He is advised by Dr. John D. Cressler, and his research focuses on the effects of radiation on silicon-photonic systems. Mr. Tzintzarov was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in 2018 and has received numerous awards from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the IEEE, including the Love Family Foundation Award in 2016 (the highest honor Georgia Tech gives to a student) and the IEEE NPSS Phelps Continuing Education Grant in 2020. He has also been the recipient ofthe 2018, 2019, and 2020 Best Paper Awards from the IEEE NPSS Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects Conference (NSREC).

His notable contributions to the field include the first experimental analysis of optical single-event transients (OSETs) in integrated silicon waveguides, and the electrical-to-optical single-event transient propagation in an integrated Mach-Zehnder Modulator.

Tzintzarov has accumulated over 1,000 hours of conducting radiation experiments at world-class radiation facilities such as the 88-inch cyclotron at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, focused X-ray microbeam at Argonne National Laboratory, and focused high-intensity lasers at the US Naval Research Laboratory. The results of these testing campaigns are used to analyze the survivability of current technologies and engineer future technologies to function in extremely high radiation-intense environments, such as those found around Jupiter’s radiation belts.

 

2020 IEEE Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects Conference Awards

It is a longstanding tradition of the IEEE Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects Conference to recognize the Outstanding Conference Paper and the Outstanding Data Workshop Presentation from the previous conference. In recent years recognition has also been given to the best paper presented by an IEEE Student Member, who must also be the first author. The awards process recognizes high quality and important work and also encourages authors to produce presentations and manuscripts of high technical quality, clarity of presentation, and significance to the community. It is our pleasure to announce the award winners from the 2020 NSREC. Their awards will be presented at the 2021 Virtual Conference.

2020 OUTSTANDING PAPER AWARD

George N. Tzintzarov, Adrian Ildefonso, Jeffrey W. Teng, Milad Frounchi, Albert Djikeng, Prahlad Iyengar, Patrick S. Goley, Ani Khachatrian, Joel Hales, Ryan Bahr, Stephen P. Buchner, Dale McMorrow, and John D. Cressler, Optical Single-Event Transients Induced in Integrated Silicon-Photonic Waveguides by Two-Photon Absorption.

2020 MERITORIOUS PAPER AWARD

Giulio Borghello, Federico Faccio, Gennaro Termo, Stefano Michelis, Sebastiano Costanzo, Henri D. Koch and Daniel M. Fleetwood, Effects of Bias and Temperature on the Dose-Rate Sensitivity of 65 nm CMOS Transistors.

2020 OUTSTANDING STUDENT PAPER AWARD

George N. Tzintzarov, Adrian Ildefonso, Jeffrey W. Teng, Milad Frounchi, Albert Djikeng, Prahlad Iyengar, Patrick S. Goley, Ani Khachatrian, Joel Hales, Ryan Bahr, Stephen P. Buchner, Dale McMorrow, and John D. Cressler, Optical Single-Event Transients Induced in Integrated Silicon-Photonic Waveguides by Two-Photon Absorption.

2020 OUTSTANDING DATA WORKSHOP PRESENTATION AWARD

Pritts, S. Wender, J. George, T. Fairbanks, J. O’Donnell, Energy-Dependent Single-Event Effects in Power MOSFETs from a Broad-Spectrum Neutron Beam,