THE COCKCROFT INSTITUTE of
ACCELERATOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Swapan
Chattopadhyay appointed to the UK’s first Chair of Accelerator Physics
and to be the Inaugural Director of The Cockcroft Institute
The Universities of
Liverpool, Manchester and Lancaster have appointed Swapan Chattopadhyay to the Sir John Cockcroft Chair of Physics. The three universities have
together created this new Chair, the first such joint chair in Accelerator
Physics in the UK.
Chattopadhyay’s appointment is to be held concurrently with the position
of Inaugural Director of The
Cockcroft Institute from March 19th 2007. He will also serve as
a principal member of the steering committees for the flagship, “fourth
generation”, light source, 4GLS,
which is now in preparation at the Daresbury
Science and Innovation Campus. The Cockcroft Institute of
Accelerator Science and Technology is a joint venture of the three universities
with the UK Research Councils PPARC
and CCLRC, and with the North West Development Agency
(NWDA).
Swapan Chattopadhyay
is currently Associate Director at the Thomas Jefferson
National Accelerator Facility, USA. He is internationally recognized
for pioneering work in the physics and technology of particle beams and photon
science. His achievements have included major contributions to phase space
cooling, to innovative particle colliders, to novel synchrotron-radiation
production, and to the generation of ultra-short, femtosecond, X-ray sources. His contributions also
include the establishment of innovative education and training in Accelerator
Physics and Engineering, and successful industrial collaboration. He has a
strong interest in, and has contributed to, the history of physics, to physics
education, and to international collaboration through science. He serves on
various executive, advisory and editorial boards of the American, European and
Asian Physical Societies and Research Councils, the US Department of Energy,
the International Committee for Future Accelerators (ICFA), professional
journals, and national and international review committees. He recently ended
his term on the Advisory Board of the Governor of the State of Virginia for the
Virginia Biotechnology Initiative, 2001-2005, and has just been elected to
serve for a term of four years 2007-2010 as the Vice-Chair, Chair-Elect, Chair
and Past-Chair of the American Physical Society’s Division of Physics of
Beams. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, and the UK Institute of Physics. He
has received many awards and distinctions from institutions, professional
societies and governments worldwide in his roles as researcher, mentor, scholar
and lecturer. Chattopadhyay quotes more than 100 refereed articles in
professional journals, and he is frequently invited to speak at international
conferences.
Born and educated
in Darjeeling and Calcutta
in India as a National Scholar
and National Science Talent Scholar until completion of his BSc (Calcutta University)
and MSc ( Indian Institute of Technology), Chattopadhyay received his PhD in
Physics from the University of California at Berkeley
in 1982 under the tutelage of Joseph Bisognano and Owen Chamberlain. He then
continued at CERN as an “attaché scientifique” in the Super
Proton Antiproton Synchrotron working with Daniel Boussard, Simon van der Meer
and Carlo Rubbia, developing the early ideas for the stochastic cooling of
bunched beams, which led to the discovery of the W and Z vector bosons at
CERN, and which today are being applied successfully to phase space cooling of
heavy ions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven. He returned to
Berkeley Lab in 1984, where he led and defined the accelerator physics of the
Advanced Light Source (ALS) and the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), where
he pioneered the accelerator physics which underpinned the Berkeley-Stanford
asymmetric B-factory (PEP-II) for
CP-violation studies, and where he initiated the Berkeley FEL/Femtosecond X-ray Source and Laser-Plasma
Acceleration development. He was a Senior Scientist, a Guest Professor, and the
Founder/Director of the Center for Beam Physics at Berkeley,
until his move to Jefferson Lab in 2001 after 25 years at the University of California
and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.
In his tenure since
2001 at Jefferson Lab as its Associate Director, Chattopadhyay has restructured
the lab creating two centres of excellence which focus on the emerging
technologies underpinning future accelerator development – the Center for
Advanced Studies of Accelerators (CASA), and the Institute for Superconducting
Radio-Frequency Science and Technology (ISRFST). He has recently initiated first
steps in the creation of a third center in advanced cryogenics. Under his
guidance and leadership, Jefferson Lab has developed electron beams of
unprecedented precision as probes of hadronic matter, has risen to become the
leading centre in the research, development and implementation of
superconducting Radio Frequency cavities, which are now operating in the Oak
Ridge Spallation Neutron Source and which are foreseen for the International
Linear Collider, and has further developed the technology of “energy recovery”
in linacs to the extent that they now can be contemplated in “fourth
generation” systems such as 4GLS now under development at Daresbury.
Professor Chattopadhyay commented on his appointments:
“I am honoured to be appointed to the Sir John Cockcroft Chair, and to be
invited to take the Directorship of the Cockcroft Institute. The creation of
the Institute by the three universities in partnership with PPARC, CCLRC, and
the NWDA, is most opportune as the world moves into gear for the challenges of
particle accelerators in the 21st century. Accelerator Science continues to
grow as a cornerstone for progress in physical and life science, and in
advanced technology. It poses major new challenges in the future, which, when
solved, will open fantastic new horizons and opportunities for science and its
application, and thereby for the progress of humankind. I applaud the vision,
commitment, courage and foresight of the founders in launching the Institute. I
am impressed by the determination of all concerned with the proposal to build
the revolutionary new light source 4GLS at Daresbury, and the scientific
challenges and opportunities which it will bring. I look forward in the future
to working with the staff in the Institute on global projects, with the 4GLS team,
and with many colleagues worldwide from my new base at the Cockcroft
Institute.”
Professor John Dainton FRS, Founding Director and Sir
James Chadwick Professor of Physics at the University of Liverpool said:
“Swapan Chattopadhyay brings to the Cockcroft Institute immense
scientific distinction and experience in Accelerator Physics. He is a world
leader in his field with a proven track record at the ‘cutting
edge’. He has been a constant source of advice and inspiration as we have
faced the challenge of launching the Institute as an international centre of
excellence. I am delighted that he has accepted the invitation to come to the
Institute. As he assumes the responsibilities of Director, I look forward to
working with him on the exciting and growing developments possible in
international science, taking full advantage of the major expansion underway at
the three research-led universities and the Daresbury Laboratory. When coupled
with the investment of the NWDA and the research councils, NW England, together
with the rest of the UK,
is further enhancing its reputation as one of, if not the, most exciting places
for scientific research in the world.”
Professor Mike Poole, Director of CCLRC ASTeC, remarked:
“Attracting such a world-leading accelerator expert to the Cockcroft
Institute is a major coup for the UK. It illustrates the gathering
strength of our national initiatives in Accelerator Science. Swapan
Chattopadhyay will have a major impact on all of our accelerator R&D
programmes, and I look forward to a close working relationship with him, with
further reinforcement of the important links between CCLRC and the
universities.”
Professor Elaine Seddon, 4GLS Project leader, commented:
“As an innovative thinker with a deep understanding of fundamental
science, of cutting-edge technical issues, and of the broad picture, Swapan
Chattopadhyay is a superb appointment as Inaugural Director of The Cockcroft
Institute. The 4GLS team is designing a world-leading accelerator that will
tackle some of the pivotal scientific issues of our time. I’m looking
forward to working very closely with Professor Chattopadhyay, and I’m
sure that a very productive time lies ahead as we face the challenges of
realising 4GLS.”
Professor Ken Peach, Director of the John Adams Institute at the University of Oxford and
Royal Holloway, University of London, which, together with the Cockcroft
Institute, provides the main focus for the new expansion of R&D in
Accelerator Science and Technology underway in the UK,
said “This is very exciting and welcome news, and strengthens enormously
the UK's
renewed Accelerator Science programme. I look forward to working with Swapan,
who has twice given seminars to the John Adams Institute, to pursue the
development and use of accelerators for the benefit of science and
society.”
Welcoming the news
of the appointment, Professor Robert
Aymar, Director General of CERN, said: “I am excited and very pleased
by the appointment of Chattopadhyay as Inaugural Director of The Cockcroft
Institute, and I look forward to important and significant collaboration in the
years to come to the benefit of science in Europe
and the rest of the world”.
The Universities of Liverpool, Manchester
and Lancaster, together
can lay historical claim to twenty eight Nobel Prize winners amongst their
staff and students. A major contributor to this distinction is in research with
particle accelerators. Following the discovery of the atomic nucleus in
Manchester by Lord Rutherford, physicists from NW England (notably the Nobel
Laureates John Cockcroft and James Chadwick) together with NW industry, were
central to the “splitting of the atom” and to the discovery of the
neutron in Cambridge. Subsequently, after one of the first synchronous RF
particle accelerators in the world was built and operated in Liverpool by
Chadwick and co-workers, physicists from Manchester and Liverpool were
instrumental in the creation of the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in
Geneva, CERN, of the Rutherford Laboratory, and
then, with Lancaster University, of the Daresbury Laboratory. All three
universities, together with colleagues at Daresbury Lab, now have groups
working at the forefront of particle, nuclear, atomic, and molecular physics at
accelerator laboratories worldwide. The creation by these universities of the
Cockcroft Institute, its growing role as an international centre of excellence
in Accelerator Science and Technology situated on the Daresbury Science and
Innovation Campus, and the appointment of someone with the distinction and
experience of Swapan Chattopadhyay to the new Sir John Cockcroft Chair, are
thus a further milestone in the development and enhancement of the on-going
excellence of science and engineering in NW England, its global impact, and its
importance for regional and national economic development in the UK.
The Cockcroft
Institute was recently opened in its new building on the Daresbury Campus by
the UK
Minister of Science, Lord Sainsbury (http://www.lancs.ac.uk/cockcroft-institute/public/CI_building_opened.pdf,
http://cerncourier.com/main/article/46/9/33/2).
Its importance in the development of UK science in a global context was
recently highlighted by the UK Prime Minister (http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page10325.asp).