Abstract: The primary employers of students who hold advanced degrees in science are industry, academia, and national labs. I will discuss various aspects of a career from the point of view of someone who has worked at two national labs: Brookhaven National Laboratory and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Each of these labs has enjoyed a rich history of success in physics research, and each offers unique advantages over jobs in other sectors. Much of this success comes from the presence of prominent national research facilities located at each lab, as these facilities attract many leading scientists from around the world who then interact and collaborate with lab scientists. Over the years a great number of Illinois alumni have had highly rewarding careers launched or sustained while working at these national research facilities.
Bio: Peter Gehring has spent the past 20 years scattering neutrons at the National Institute of Standards and Technology Center for Neutron Research (NCNR), located in Gaithersburg, MD. He received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois in 1989 after working with Prof. Myron Salamon on studies of random magnetic anisotropy in rare-earth, Laves phase, materials. He then accepted a postdoctoral position with Dr. Gen Shirane, one of the world’s foremost experts on neutron scattering, at Brookhaven National Lab, located in Upton, NY, where he collaborated on a diverse range of projects involving high-Tc superconductivity, ferroelectricity, magnetism, and DNA. After four years he moved to the DC area to become an instrument scientist at the NCNR, where he helped design, build, and commission a novel neutron backscattering spectrometer. He has published over 100 papers, was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2006, and is now the Scientific Assistant to the NCNR Director.
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