Dimitri Argyriou Named Next Director of Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source

Jul 25, 2023

Dimitri Argyriou, an accomplished physicist and Associate Director for In-Kind Management at the European Spallation Source, has been selected to serve as the next director of the Advanced Light Source (ALS) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). His appointment is expected to begin this June. The announcement follows an international search.

“I am very pleased that Dimitri is joining us to become the next director of the Advanced Light Source,” said Berkeley Lab Director Mike Witherell. “With his expertise and leadership experience at some of the world’s leading research laboratories, he is well suited to ensure the ALS and its community will continue to advance science for the benefit of society.”

The ALS is an X-ray synchrotron scientific user facility that produces extremely bright X-ray, infrared, and extreme ultraviolet light for more than 1,800 visiting scientists each year. Up to 40 experiments can be performed simultaneously using the synchrotron, resulting in nearly 900 peer-reviewed scientific articles each year across a range of fields, from chemistry and materials sciences to biology and environmental sciences.

In addition, the ALS is undergoing a major upgrade, called ALS-U, which will take advantage of state-of-the-art technologies to endow the ALS with light more than 100 times brighter than the facility offers today, opening the door to new realms of scientific study and keeping the ALS’s world-leading capabilities.

“I am delighted to join the team at Berkeley Lab and humbled to be given the opportunity to lead the Advance Light Source through what will be some incredibly exciting times,” said Argyriou. “ALS staff and the ALS community have played a pioneering role in science with photons. The ALS upgrade will super-charge this community and position Berkeley Lab in a world leading role in photon science. I am looking forward to stewarding the ALS through this exciting transition and, with a team spirit, working with ALS staff, Berkeley Lab staff, and the user community to harvest the capabilities offered by this upgrade to deliver transformative science.“

“We are thrilled to have Dimitri, a seasoned scientific leader with broad experience with user facilities and with Basic Energy Sciences, join our Energy Sciences Area leadership team and take the helm of the ALS at this important juncture,” said Jeff Neaton, Associate Laboratory Director for Energy Sciences at Berkeley Lab. “I look forward to partnering with Dimitri and the ALS staff to steer the ALS through the upgrade and beyond.”

“For the ALS organization to take full advantage of the exciting opportunities that lie before it, it must work as a coherent team that embraces and harnesses the diversity of its staff and users, and takes every opportunity to include their invaluable contributions. I stand committed to the principles of inclusion, diversity, equity, and accountability at Berkeley Lab,” Argyriou added.

Argyriou’s primary research has utilized neutron and X-ray scattering to understand emergent behavior in complex oxides and novel superconductors. He has worked across scientific areas that include solid state chemistry, crystal growth, and theory.

As Director of Science at the European Spallation Source (ESS), he led the development of the scientific case to support the start of its construction. Working with the user community, he defined the instrument suite of ESS as well as the partnerships and project structure to deliver it.

At Ames National Laboratory, he held the role of Chief Research Officer, overseeing the DOE Basic Energy Sciences portfolio of programs, the development of new research projects, and management of the laboratory’s LDRD funds. He has also held staff positions at Argonne National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Argyriou received his Ph.D. and B.Sc. in Physics from the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia and his habilitation from Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule in Aachen, Germany. He has co-authored over 180 peer reviewed publications, and is an adjunct professor of the University of Lund, Sweden, a fellow of the American Physical Society, and a recipient of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Prize. Argyriou has served on various international facility advisory committees including the ISIS facility (UK), Materials and Life Sciences neutron Facility at J-PARC (Japan) and the Oyster-Project at the research reactor at Delft (The Netherlands).

The Advanced Light Source is a DOE Office of Science User Facility.

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Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest scientific challenges are best addressed by teams, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and its scientists have been recognized with 16 Nobel Prizes. Today, Berkeley Lab researchers develop sustainable energy and environmental solutions, create useful new materials, advance the frontiers of computing, and probe the mysteries of life, matter, and the universe. Scientists from around the world rely on the Lab’s facilities for their own discovery science. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory, managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.