The Speakers

A Postdoctoral Fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, experimental physicist with expertise in high power laser technology, nonlinear and ultrafast optics, high-resolution optical imaging, XUV-SXR high harmonic generation and spectroscopy, strong-field physics, and plasma physics. Currently, he is interested in the photon-induced dynamics of molecules, where the relevant timescales for these interactions are typically in the range of attoseconds to picoseconds.

Michael Woods, CLSO, is the Laser Safety Officer at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. He is an Engineering Physicist, with a B.Sc. in Engineering Physics from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, and a Ph.D. in High Energy Physics from the University of Chicago. He has been at SLAC for 34 years – initially as a postdoc, then as a staff physicist for 3 years in the Accelerator Department followed by 15 years as a researcher in experimental particle physics. He spent 15 years utilizing high-power laser systems for photo-injectors, Compton polarimeters, and electron beam diagnostics. He became SLAC LSO in 2008. He is a member of the ANSI Z136 ASC, ADCOM, SSC-1, SSC-8, and TSC-5 committees; and is Chair for the TSC-4 on Controls, Training, and Laser Safety Programs. He is a past chair of DOE's EFCOG Laser Safety Task Group.

Ken Barat is one of the first CLSO with 30 years of experience addressing laser safety. His motto is “Safety through Cooperation”. He has been a resource nationally and internationally. He has written 11 texts on laser safety. Former LSO for Lawrence Berkeley Lab, National Ignition Facility at Livermore National Lab. He is the laser safety adviser to LIGO, Allen Institute, ELI Beamlines, and others. He contributes to the quarterly column on laser safety for Photonics Spectra. Ken is a chair of the ANSI Z136.8 Research Standard for its first two editions and sits on a number of ANSI committees as well as Ask the expert panel for the HPS & LIA. Performs training and audits. He is a Rockwell Award winner, an LIA Fellow, SPIE & IEEE Senior Member, and last but not least - the Director of the first through seventh LSO Workshops. email: lasersafetysolutions@gmail.com.

Judi Reilly, Certified Laser Safety Officer (CLSO), joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984 and is currently Senior Radiation Protection Officer managing the use of radioactive material, ionizing and non-ionizing radiation programs for MIT and Lincoln Laboratories. Judi currently serves on the ANSI Z136.8 “Safe Use of Lasers in Research and Development or Testing” technical committee, Course Instructor for Kentek, and is a member of the Laser Institute of America and New England Health Physics Society.

Dr. Sliney received his Ph.D. in biophysics and medical physics from the University College London, Institute of Ophthalmology. He was a Program Manager at what is now the US Army Public Health Center until his retirement in 2007. His research interests focus on subjects related to UV effects upon the eye, optical hazards from intense light sources and lasers, laser-tissue interactions, and laser applications in medicine and surgery. He has been a member of ASC Z136 since the beginning (1968) and serves as convenor of WG-1/IEC TC76 on lasers. He was coauthor of a well-know 1,000-page handbook, Safety with Lasers and Other Optical Sources (1980), Springer and co-author of Medical Lasers and Their Safe Use, Springer, 1993. He has been active in promoting germicidal ultraviolet and served as chair of some standards committees related to ultraviolet. Dr. Sliney chairs the IES Photobiology Committee. He was a Fulbright Scholar to Yugoslavia in 1977 and received the Wilkening Award and the Schawlow Award from the LIA and the Award for Distinguished Scientific Achievements from the Health Physics Society in 2009. He served as President of the Laser Institute of America in 1992 and as President of the American Society for Photobiology during 2008-2009.

David Egan did his degree in Maths and Physics at Nottingham University (UK) and a PhD in the use of lasers and fibre optics in engineering at Cranfield University, in what feels, a very long time ago. He was involved with the early development of fibre optical components and subsequently worked through the boom and bust of the telecoms market, working in the UK, China and Taiwan. Moved from there to a company making bespoke laser and fibre optic systems for a wide array of engineering and biomedical applications. Started working at the Orion laser facility at AWE in 2005 as the Optics Specialist, part of the original project team.

Initially took on a laser safety role in Orion about 2012 and became the laser safety officer in 2014, increasing his role to cover the whole of Radiation Physics. This not only involved the safety assessments for work on-site, but also covering laser operations throughout the UK and in overseas labs, wherever AWE was involved. He rewrote the laser safety training at AWE and during Covid moved the process on-line and started training the whole of site. He has covered not only the safety aspects of lasers but also non-coherent sources. He has presented numerous times at the DOE LSO workshop and at other laser safety conferences. His biggest focus, at the moment, is the moving away from laser protective eyewear as the primary means of protection when working with lasers, and encouraging scientists to build in alternatives engineered solutions at the design phase.

Alex Lindquist serves the National Renewable Energy Laboratory as a Certified Laser Safety Officer and Certified Safety Professional. He joined the team in Golden, Colorado in 2014 and is now a member of the management team for the Environment, Safety, Health, and Quality Office at NREL. Alex has his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and he is currently finishing his Master of Science degree in Organizational Leadership from the University of Denver. He appreciates bold strategic vision and has a passion for stakeholder engagement as the foundation for the programs he supports.

Matthew S. Dabney spent the first 13 years of his career mastering details of optics at Hyperfine, Inc. He fabricated and qualified most of the optics in the Hubble Space Telescope as well as other space flight optics. Matthew brought his optics and engineering experience with him to the National Renewable Energy Labs (NREL) National Center for Photovoltaics in Golden, CO, where he was an optical engineer. During his 14 years at NREL as an engineer, he was encouraged to pursue first a Master’s and then a PhD in materials science at Colorado School of Mines, while working full time on laser processing of materials for photovoltaics. In 2017 to solve a two-body problem, Matthew took up a position at Cornell University as a facility manager in charge of Confocal laser microscopy and XPS. In Ithaca he missed seeing the sun, and in 2019 moved to the Philadelphia area to work at Edmund Optics where he has established a laser lab to research Laser Induced Damage of optical materials.

Matthew has always been committed to the safe use of lasers and served as the LSO for NREL from 2013-2016. He was on the board of Energy Facility Contractors Group - Laser Safety Committee which oversees laser safety of all the Department of Energy labs. Matthew was a coauthor of the NFPA 70e article 330 on electrical safety of lasers and served on the ANSI z136.8 standard for the safe use of lasers in R&D.

Matthew has published over 30 scientific papers on topics ranging from pulsed laser deposition of novel transparent conducting oxides, laser nucleation, and growth of Silicon, the safe use of class 4 lasers in industrial settings, to the Development of a robust LIDT testbed.

Matthew has been working at Edmund Optics for the last 3 years as a Principal Engineer and R&D manager. He leads research into laser damage, UV fatigue, and other laser related science.

Dr. Simon Lappi has worked with lasers for over 25 years, both as an operator and as a laser safety officer. He was formally the LSO at North Carolina State University for 10yrs. While director of a spectroscopy research facility Simon became involved in laser safety and started working with EH&S on laser safety issues. Ten years ago he joined NC State’s EH&S as a chemical safety specialist and laser safety officer. Recently Dr. Lappi joined RTI International as the EH&S Safety Manager, overseeing occupational safety and general safety programs.

Gary Spichiger is currently the Laser Safety Officer and Associate Radiation Safety Officer for the Georgia Institute of Technology. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Physics, a Master’s Degree in Business Administration, and is a Certified Laser Safety Officer. He has been practicing Health Physics for 26 years, beginning at Western Kentucky University, while also providing consulting services to industry. Gary is currently a member of the Z136 SSC-1 and SSC-8 subcommittees.

Robert Fairchild is a Certified Laser Safety Officer and practitioner member of the National Registry of Radiation Protection Technologists with over 34 years of experience practicing health physics. He is currently the Deputy LSO and Deputy Radiological Control Manager for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Robert represents LBNL as an alternate on the Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) Z136 and is the former Vice Chair of SSC-8. He has actively served on SSC-1 and SSC-8 for 10 years.

Sam Barber is a research scientist at the BELLA Center at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab.

He received a PhD in physics from UCLA in 2015. His research is focused on research and development of novel advanced accelerator techniques. Currently, he is leading efforts on developing the technology to enable compact free electron lasers driven by an electron beams produced in a laser plasma accelerators. For this research, he has worked closely on the design, construction and operation of 100 TW-class ultra-fast laser systems.

Professor

Herbert Wertheim School of Optometry and Vision Science, University of California, Berkeley

Austin Roorda received his Ph.D. from the University of Waterloo in 1996 in Vision Science & Physics. Since then, he’s pioneered applications of AO and ophthalmoscopy, including mapping of the human trichromatic cone mosaic, designing the first adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscope, tracking and targeting light delivery with cone-level accuracy in the human eye, and being part of the first team to use AO imaging to monitor efficacy of a treatment to slow retinal degeneration. Since 2005, he has been at Berkeley where he is a member of the Vision Science, Bioengineering and Neuroscience graduate programs. He’s been a member of the non-ionizing radiation safety committee for over 15 years and currently serves as the committee chair. Notable awards are the Distinguished Alumni Award (University of Waterloo School of Optometry, 2007), the Glenn Fry Award (American Academy of Optometry, 2009), a John S. Guggenheim Fellowship (2014), an Alcon Research Institute Award (2016) and a Leverhulme Visiting Professorship (2020) from the University of Oxford.