Schedule and Program

Christopher P. J. Barty

Distinguished Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine

Talk Title: Finding and Treating Cancer in an Instant: The Promise of Distributed Charge Compton Sources

Chris Barty is currently a Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy, a member of the Beckman Laser Institute & Medical Clinic, an associate member of Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, a professor by courtesy in the Department of Surgery within the School of Medicine, and a faculty member of the Chemical and Materials Physics (ChaMP) program. Externally he is chairman of the International Committee on Ultrahigh Intensity Lasers and a co-founder of Lumitron Technologies, Inc. which is based in Irvine. Professor Barty received his Ph.D. and M.S. in applied physics from Stanford University and B.S. degrees, each with honors, in chemistry, physics and chemical engineering from North Carolina State University. He has been elected a fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA), the Society for Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE), the American Physical Society (APS), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Professor Barty’s present research aims to enable new, laser-based, x-ray modalities for the precision detection and treatment of disease, novel x-ray studies of ultrafast material dynamics and the emergence of nuclear photonics as a new scientific discipline.

Jennifer Dionne

Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University

Talk Title: Nanophotonics to Decode the Language of Life: Protein Sequencing, Cell Phenotyping, and In Vivo Force Quantification

Jennifer (Jen) Dionne is a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford, a Biohub Investigator, Deputy Director of Q-NEXT — a National Quantum Information Science Center — and co-founder of Pumpkinseed, a protein-sequencing company. A pioneer of nanophotonics, she develops novel methods to detect molecules and direct their transformations, with a focus on critical challenges in global health and sustainability. Her lab designs nanophotonic resonators and cavities that enhance light-matter interactions, enabling applications spanning single-molecule spectroscopy, catalysis, and quantum networking. Building on this platform, her lab has demonstrated how AI-enabled Raman spectroscopy can characterize cellular phenotypes — including predicting antibiotic resistance and immunotherapy response — and has pioneered novel proteomic and glyco-sequencing approaches. She has also advanced the field of plasmon catalysis, linking atomic-scale photocatalyst structure resolved via in-operando microscopy to catalytic function for sustainable chemical manufacturing. Her work has been recognized with the NSF Alan T. Waterman Award, the NIH Director's New Innovator Award, the Moore Inventor Fellowship, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and was featured on Oprah's list of "50 Things That Will Make You Say 'Wow!'" Jen received her B.S. degrees in Physics and in Systems Science and Mathematics from Washington University in St. Louis, her Ph.D. in Applied Physics at Caltech, and postdoctoral training in Chemistry at Berkeley.

Jennifer Klay

Professor and Chair, Department of Physics, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

Talk Title: Exploring Nuclear Collisions at a PUI: Across Scales, Detectors, and Generations

Jennifer Klay is Professor and Chair of the Physics Department at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where she leads departmental strategy, faculty development, curriculum, and operations. She earned a B.S. in Astrophysics from UCLA and a Ph.D. in Nuclear Physics from UC Davis.  Her work spans nuclear and particle physics, computational physics, nuclear energy, and physics education. She has contributed to seven major experimental collaborations, conducted research at six U.S. National Laboratories, CERN, and the Max Planck Institute, and served in leadership roles including Chair of the Executive Council for the NIFFTE Collaboration. She has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals, including contributions to the Encyclopedia of Nuclear Energy. She serves on the boards of the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History and Mothers for Nuclear, supporting public understanding of nuclear science and nuclear energy.

Katherine A. Yelick

Director, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Talk Title: Science in the age of A.I.

Katherine “Kathy” Yelick is the ninth director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Yelick is a leading computer scientist with a highly distinguished research and leadership career at UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab. A prominent leader in high-performance computing, she is internationally recognized for her foundational work on parallel languages and software libraries that optimize massively parallel computing.

Since joining UC Berkeley in 1991 and Berkeley Lab in 1996, she has held several high-level leadership positions across both institutions. At Berkeley Lab, Yelick directed the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (2008–2012) and served as associate laboratory director for Computing Sciences (2010–2019). At UC Berkeley, her leadership roles include associate dean for the Division of Computing, Data Science, and Society as well as vice chancellor for research (2022–2026), where she oversaw a billion-dollar research enterprise.

On the national stage, she worked with senior managers across the DOE national lab complex to launch the Exascale Computing Initiative, which ran from 2016 to 2024 and developed the critical applications and software needed to make effective use of exascale-capable hardware. She has also been instrumental in helping DOE develop strategies for artifi cial intelligence and big data research.

Yelick’s research focuses on efficient algorithms and applications, with interdisciplinary collaborations ranging from chemistry and fusion energy simulations to large-scale microbial genomics data analysis. She has authored over 200 refereed publications and earned her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Her distinguished career is marked by numerous honors, including the ACM/IEEE Ken Kennedy Award. Yelick is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Association for Computing Machinery. Her leadership and technical contributions continue to shape the intersection of science, technology, and operations.