It has been a busy start to the year and an exciting one as the light sources community is celebrating 2015 UNESCO’s International Year of Light. In this issue of Diamond News, you will get an update on the vision and strategy work led by CEO Andrew Harrison to keep Diamond competitive on the world synchrotron stage. You will also be able to read about the developments in the Phase III construction with a particular focus on the two new beamlines for protein crystallography, VMXm and VMXi as well as the multipurpose XPDF beamline I15-1.
Our focus on science feeds from the growing number of science highlights where we draw on the exciting range of applications synchrotrons enable. A new capability has been added to the Powder Diffraction beamline, I11, where it is now possible to do long duration experiments. On the industry front, we are delighted to announce the appointment of Sven Schroder as the Centenary Bragg Chair, which is an initiative resulting from a major national collaboration between Diamond, the fuel and lubricant additive developer Infineum UK Ltd, the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the University of Leeds.
Our two Spring features look at the growth of 3D printing and how we at Diamond harness its potential for synchrotron components and the importance of the software interfaces developed for (and with) the user community.
For those of you not yet aware, Diamond welcomed a new Executive Director Jane Tirard who is now leading our Finance and Corporate Services teams. Jane joined us at the start of January and we caught up with her for this issue. We finish with a range of engagement activities our staff and users have taken part in in the hope that many of you users will follow in their footsteps! We report on the latest symposium presented this February at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in California, which resulted in extensive media coverage in the Financial Times, Economist and BBC to name a few.
A few new initiatives like the undergraduate student placement award and the new work experience initiative for school years 10-13 at Diamond make a good read for those of you interested in wider engagement opportunities.
Finally, a potted summary of activities is also included for the International Year of Light (www.light2015.org).
Happy reading!
Isabelle Boscaro-Clarke
Head of Communications, Diamond Light Source Ltd.
Diamond Light Source is the UK's national synchrotron science facility, located at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire.
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