Poster Social Brings Researchers Together

December 17, 2019

LLNL’s colleagues discuss their research during the annual JHEDS and ICF APS Poster Social. Photos by Jason Laurea

The annual APS Poster Social gives researchers a chance to share their work with colleagues and start new collaborations. That proved especially true for Kevin Ma, who had come full circle as he presented his scientific poster at this year’s event.

The University of Michigan graduate student became interested in the science outlined in a poster he saw about three years ago while attending the event. The Joint High Energy Density Science (JHEDS) and Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) APS Poster Social is held at the Lab after attendees of the off-site American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics (APS DPP) conference have returned.

Ma and the poster’s author, Design Physics Division Group Leader Mehul Patel, began talking and found “we had similar ideas about research,” Ma said. “I’m actually collaborating with him now on work that he’s doing.”

Those discussions eventually led to research on the “thermal transport modeling of laser-irradiated spheres,” which Ma presented in October during the 61st APS DPP conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

“That pretty much highlights the benefit of this session,” Ma said. “It’s a good opportunity to connect and that’s good for research in general.”

The Lab usually sends a large contingent of its top researchers to the APS DPP conference, which draws a gathering of physicists and researchers from around the world. This year’s conference featured about a dozen invited talks involving NIF & Photon Science research.

There’s always so much research going on at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that it’s challenging for Lab scientists to keep up with developments outside their own areas.

Michael Wadas, a University of Michigan PhD candidate, discusses his research during the APS Poster Social.

The APS DPP conference “is a good way to catch up with what your colleagues are doing here at the Lab and what others are doing at other labs,” said physicist Peter Amendt.

The convention schedule, however, can be packed and LLNL has such a strong presence that Lab attendees sometimes don’t get a chance to see each other’s invited talks, oral presentations, and posters.

The APS Poster Social, hosted by JHEDS and Weapons and Complex Integration, was organized several years ago to provide a second chance.

“Here’s a chance to ask more pointed questions about the research,” Amendt said as he scanned the room full of about 50 posters. “We can find out what everybody else is doing and apply those lessons to our own research, so it’s a very valuable forum.”

See also: NIF Experiments Draw Interest at APS Plasma Physics Conference

—Benny Evangelista

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