Report of The 10th SESAME Users' Meeting
November 7 – 9, 2012
Amman - Jordan
The 10th SESAME Users’ meeting was held in Amman from 7th to 9th of November 2012. The meeting was well attended, and more than 100 scientists and researchers from SESAME region took part. This was a unique users’ meeting due to the fact that participants from all SESAME members (Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority and Turkey) were present during this meeting. Several participants who attended the meeting came from countries other than SESAME members, including Algeria, Congo, Kuwait, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, and Yemen.
The three-day meeting involved invited talks, users’ talks, special sessions and three dedicated workshops. The programme also included a site visit. For users’ talks, around 50 abstracts were received on various subjects related to SESAME. Workshops were dedicated to the three day-one beamlines of SESAME namely: XRF/XAFS, IR and PX.
Invited speakers included: Herman Winick (SSRL, USA), Jean Daillant (SOLEIL – France), Giuliana Aquilanti (Elettra – Italy), Silvia Onesti (Elettra – Italy), Claudio Tuniz (ICTP - Italy), Eli Stavitski (CLS – Canada) and Panche Naumov (NYU – Abu Dhabi). During workshops, which were organized in parallel, several users presented their work, followed by a roundtable discussion about the SESAME day-one beamlines. Users from SESAME region and experts from operational synchrotron facilities along with SESAME beamline scientists discussed various beamline parameters and user requirements. SESAME beamline scientists took note of all these points and presented them to the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) of SESAME for further implementation into the scientific programme and planning of beamlines.
A special session during the users’ meeting was organized for 80th birthday of Herman Winick who played a vital role in the early development of SESAME project and continues to be a dedicated supporter. A special session was also held to discuss the EU funded project LinkSCEEM where SESAME is a partner along with the Cyprus Institute. The LinkSCEEM project involves High Performance Computing (HPC) and its applications in the field of synchrotron research.
As the SESAME user community is becoming more mature, the 9th SESAME Users’ meeting in 2011 agreed the establishment f a Users’ Committee. The main objective of this is to provide an organized framework for interaction between SESAME users and the facility management. During the users’ meeting, an interim Users’ Committee discussed with the users the terms of reference of the Committee, eligibility criteria for Users’ Committee Members and the electoral process for appointing Members.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) and science societies generously supported the Users’ meeting by providing support and travel grants. The societies that have supported the SESAME Users’ meeting included: the American Physical Society (APS), Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft (DPG), the European Physical Society (EPS), the UK Institute of Physics (IOP), the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP).
In conclusion, the 10th SESAME Users’ Meeting was a very successful and well- organized scientific event. Besides discussing world-class science, the meeting also helped to bring participants from varied and diverse backgrounds together, leading to greater mutual understanding. The meeting provided proof that science is a universal language for all mankind. SESAME management is grateful for the support provided for the meeting by all sponsoring bodies. These meetings are playing vital role of capacity building in the region that is one of the major theme of SESAME project. The SESAME user community is growing and becoming more mature with time in terms of understanding the applications of synchrotron radiation in their research work.
To see the 10th SESAME Users' Meeting photo gallery please click on this photo
