NIF & PS People - 2018
March
Tour Guides Put NIF’s Best Foot Forward
Providing STEM Outreach to Young Girls
Laser Roadshow Visits Two Local Schools
Meet the Women of NIF & Photon Science
It takes a technical staff with a wide variety of expertise and experience to support operating NIF as a user facility and to develop and carry out a preeminent experimental program in high-energy-density science on NIF.
And it takes a technical staff with a wide variety of expertise and experience to support other activities of the NIF&PS Directorate, where innovation and the development of critical technologies are key to advancing the state of the art in laser science.
Some of the talented and dedicated professional women who help make up this remarkable workforce are profiled in the 2018 edition of Women of NIF. The skills of the women of NIF&PS range from chemistry to physics, from biology to engineering, and from material science to microscale fabrication, applied mathematics, statistics, computer science, information technology, and robotics. Their backgrounds and interests are equally varied.
While the brochure focuses on the Directorate’s scientists and engineers, the contributions of many other women working at NIF&PS, including technicians, analysts, designers, and administrative personnel, are equally vital to accomplishing our important missions: helping ensure the nation’s security and continued scientific leadership and furthering the pursuit of a clean, safe, and virtually inexhaustible source of energy.
Tour Guides Put NIF’s Best Foot Forward
In 2017, after about eight-and-a-half years of operation, NIF reached its epic 2,000th shot. Over that time, as the shot rate steadily climbed, other important numbers also have risen dramatically. By the end of 2017, the total number of people exposed first-hand to NIF’s world-class technology and achievements by participating in official facility tours grew to 82,336. Due to a boost from Family Day last October, 12,348 of those visitors were from last year alone.
These visits were made possible by the work of dozens of NIF volunteer tour guides, who take time out from their busy schedules to spread the word about NIF’s science and missions. 
Tour coordinator CaT Vogen and tour guides (left to right) Jamie King, Fred Holdener, and Dave Mathisen show off the targets they use at the start of each tour. Credit: Jason Laurea
“NIF is an incredible facility that demonstrates what the Lab, NNSA (the National Nuclear Security Administration), and the nation are capable of achieving for our national security through dedication and hard work,” says NIF Director Mark Herrmann. “Educating others about this amazing capability is both a lot of fun and an important responsibility. I’d like to thank the tour program and all the dedicated tour guides for all their hard work in sharing NIF with visitors to the Lab.”
A group of veteran tour guides responsible for introducing many visitors to NIF recently took a few moments to reflect on the tours they’ve led over the years:
“I started giving tours in 2002, before the laser was even built,” says Fred Holdener, a senior mechanical design engineer. “Once the building was up, we took people onto the roof and showed them the windmills on the Altamont Pass because there wasn’t much else to see yet. Then we’d take them to the four-story loft to see the giant blowers, which eventually would cool the amplifiers. That’s how early I started.”
“We are one of the hottest places in the Solar System.”
–Tammy Ma
Nowadays tours, like NIF, are finely tuned machines unto themselves. And if NIF is between shots, visitors are treated to a glimpse of the Target Bay, where inside a vacuum chamber NIF’s 192 lasers deposit up to nearly two million joules of ultraviolet energy on a tiny target, creating conditions comparable to the cores of stars and giant planets.
Official tours became formalized in 2003 and up to last year’s end, have been run no fewer than 7,403 times. Though the age range of tour visitors is wide, having the opportunity to reach students of all ages is a tour-guide favorite.
“I ask the students about what careers they think are needed to run NIF,” says NIF Computation Division leader Lisa Belk. “We have conversations about the different professions, then tie them to the different college degrees. It is quite eye-opening to them. We talk about physicists, engineering, computer science, business, finance, marketing, graphics design, and more. They learn how a variety of jobs must come together in an interdisciplinary way to create a great scientific research and development facility.”
Alongside the Target Chamber, Lisa Belk explains how NIF’s 192 beams converge on the target to Laboratory employees from the Computation Directorate. Credit: Dan Linehan For now and for our future, say the tour guides, it’s more important than ever to recognize diversity and better connect the full range of students to science. The Laboratory strives to achieve this outreach through programs like Expanding Your Horizons and Science on Screen. NIF tours also play an important role, but there are only five female tour guides.
“We need more women to join the tour-guide ranks,” Belk says. “Especially when giving tours to middle, high school, or college students, people often come up to me to say that they were happy to see a female scientist. It is important for young women as well as young men to see the Laboratory representing this and other types of diversity.”
NIF isn’t just the largest laser in the world, standing off on its own. It connects to all of LLNL’s directorates and embodies the full range of work performed across the Laboratory. Tour guides translate this integration as they explain what the Laboratory does in the broader context of national security and stockpile stewardship. And being inside an enormous laser is a straightforward way to resonate with visitors.
“Working as a tour guide reminds me that, from the very start, NIF is made up of people who devoted their lives to achieve ignition at the Laboratory,” says computer scientist Dave Mathisen. “I have so much respect for them. Now it has become my life’s work and my passion to carry on the legacy. It’s just so cool when we get to show the public what we do. Everybody, including me, turns into a twelve-year-old kid and goes, ‘Wow.’”
Jamie King, the Laboratory’s Laser Safety Program manager and NIF’s laser safety officer, adds that sharing with the public is vital for NIF’s longevity. Knowing that most visitors will likely only get to see the hour-long tour once, he aims to show off how well the nation’s investment in NIF is paying off.
“It’s great the way the public lights up,” says King. “Our duty as tour guides is to blow them away with the science, which isn’t hard to do considering the amazing things that go on here. We want to leave them inspired and feeling a sense of awe. This also helps them to understand how well their tax dollars are being spent.”
The Target Bay, Laser Bay overlook, and Control Room are, of course, impressive stops for visitors. But connecting to NIF’s operations in relatable ways also has a tremendous impact.
Dave Mathison briefs high school students who traveled from Chartwell School in Seaside, California, to learn about NIF’s missions. Credit: Dan Linehan “I love telling mind-blowing facts, like every time we do a shot at NIF, we are one of the hottest places in the Solar System,” says experimental plasma physicist Tammy Ma (NIF implosions reach peak temperatures of more than 100 million degrees Centigrade—more than five times hotter than the core of the Sun). “When their eyes bulge, I find that incredibly gratifying.”
The science outreach at the Laboratory, which Ma is part of now, had a direct influence on her many years ago.
“I heard a Science on Saturday talk about NIF by (former NIF Director) Ed Moses when I was a student. I went to a lot of these talks,” says Ma. “And later when I was a summer intern at the Laboratory, I got a NIF tour. The walls weren’t even up yet, and of course at the time, I had no idea what was going on. But now, I’m part of both programs, and I get to expose people to big science—it’s really cool.”
Tours are limited to 15 visitors and are held an average of about 10 tours a week. For some busy weeks, the number of tours surpasses 20, so there’s a high demand for tour guides and a need to orchestrate the flux of visitors within NIF without interrupting its operations.
“Understanding the interests, background, and needs of a visitor group is also important,” says NIF tour program coordinator CaT Vogen. “All the tour guides cover the same messages about NIF’s missions and how the laser functions end-to-end, but each of them brings unique specialties, approaches, and experiences. I try to match them up to give the visitors the best experience possible.”
Sixty employees are currently certified to conduct tours and 15 more are in training; volunteers must complete two Web courses and “shadow” a few tours to become certified. Those interested in becoming a tour guide should contact Vogen at vogen3@llnl.gov.
NIF tours are clearly a win all the way around. The Laboratory has the opportunity to open a window into its vital missions and cutting-edge science; the public gets an up-close view of the inner workings of a world-leading research facility; and tour guides continue to make this connection possible, as NIF persists in pushing the boundaries of science.
—Dan Linehan
More Information
View a video tour that captures the importance and excitement of conducting experiments on the world’s highest-energy laser system:
Providing STEM Outreach to Young Girls
Five NIF & Photon Science volunteers participated in the 39th annual Tri-Valley Expanding Your Horizons (EYH) Conference at Diablo Valley College in San Ramon on Feb. 24. EYH conferences are designed to help motivate young women to consider education and career options in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
At the NIF & Photon Science booth, Raluca Negres (left) explains 3D printing, Robin Miles and Kendra Ruiz discuss the NIF laser and targets, and Louisa Pickworth (back to the camera) demonstrates the properties of lasers with a Laser Light Fountain. Kathleen Schaffers organized the NIF&PS booth and took the photo. More than 300 6th through 9th graders came from Livermore, Pleasanton, Dublin, San Ramon and Tracy to attend the day-long event and participate in special group activities along with two 90-minute hands-on workshops. The day also featured a career fair comprised of booths that allowed participants to learn about new technologies and career opportunities and engage with professional women role models in STEM-related careers.
LLNL and NIF & Photon Science have a long history of EYH participation. This year’s theme, “Find Your Inner Superpower,” encouraged the young women to pursue their dreams and take control of their future by being a “shero—a hero that is a she.”
The annual conference is coordinated by a core committee of volunteers with the help of more than 100 additional volunteers from LLNL, Sandia National Laboratories/California and the American Association of University Women.
Laser Roadshow Visits Two Local Schools
The NIF & Photon Science Laser Roadshow, featuring demonstrations of lasers and their properties, visited two schools in nearby Pleasanton, California, in January as part of LLNL’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) outreach program.
Physicist Randolph Hood of the Lab’s Physical and Life Sciences Directorate demonstrates the Laser Light Fountain during Donlon Elementary School’s STEM night on Jan. 25. The NIF Laser Roadshow includes a number of interactive laser demonstrations (Laser Light Fountain, Laser DJ, and NIF “3D ride”) that have traveled across the country to museums and science fairs to bring awareness and education to students and the general public about lasers and how they function. The Laser Light Fountain uses lasers to demonstrate color mixing (red + green = yellow) as well as the principle of total internal reflection, which allows the laser to follow the falling water.
In the Laser DJ presentation, an MP3 player is used to modulate a visible laser so music can be transmitted through the air or a fiber-optic cable to a photodiode receiver. The photodiode detects the laser light and converts it back into an electric pulse so a speaker can reproduce the sound or music.
NIF&PS physicist Rajesh Raman participated in Hart Elementary School’s STEM night on Jan. 18. 
