On 16 February, Andrea Lausi arrived in Jordan to take up the position of Scientific Director of SESAME.
Andrea brings with him extensive experience in the science programme of synchrotron light facilities having worked at Elettra-Sincrotrone Trieste S.C.p.A. in Trieste (Italy) since 1996.
His recent positions at the Italian Laboratory included Head of the XPRESS beamline for high pressure studies, a position he held until he joined SESAME, Head of Elettra’s MCX Powder Diffraction beamline (2008-2015) and Head of the Laboratory’s Powder Diffraction beamline (2002-2008). Since 2008 he has also been in charge of coordination between all the user beamlines and the machine group at Elettra.
Andrea also brings long-standing experience in science communication having been a member, since May 2013, of the Communication Task Force of Elettra, and the person responsible for the Elettra content at lightsources.org. Moreover, in April 2019 he was appointed Chair of the RICE (Research Infrastructure Communications and Engagement) working group of the ERF-AISBL (Association of European-Level Research Infrastructures Facilities).
“I join SESAME at a very exciting time” said Andrea. “There are now three operational beamlines at SESAME, providing experimental beamtime to a community of users that is wide both in terms of geographical provenance and disciplines covered - they range from materials science and engineering, to life sciences, to cultural heritage, and more. Also the number of proposals for beam time that is being received is exceptionally good by the standard of any synchrotron light facility. The major challenge I now see for my team and myself in the next few years is completion of the remaining suite of the Phase I beamlines, namely the Tomography beamline also known as BEATS (BEAmline for Tomography at SESAME), the Soft X-ray beamline also known as HESEB (HElmholtz-Sesame Beamline), the SAXS/WAXS (Small Angle and Wide Angle X-ray Scattering) beamline, and the MX (Macromolecular Crystallography) beamline for which there is a particularly large user community in the region.”
Andrea has carried out research in numerous areas and has been an invited teacher in several crystallography and instrumentation schools.