Former Graduate Student Biographies

 

 

 

Drs. Robert W. & Marianne E. Hamm

For the past 40 years, Robert has been active in the development of particle accelerators for physics research and commercial applications, including electrostatic accelerators, linear accelerators (linacs) and cyclotrons. He and his wife recently started R&M Technical Enterprises, Inc., doing consulting work in the accelerator field based on these many years of experience. For 22 years, he was the President and CEO of AccSys Technology, Inc., a successful company devoted to the development and manufacturing of ion linear accelerators for medical, research and industrial applications. The company was bought by Hitachi Ltd. in 2007. Prior to co-founding AccSys in 1985, he was Manager of Research in the Radiation Division of Varian Associates, with primary responsibility for the development of new medical and industrial electron linacs. Robert was Vice President of R&D at The Cyclotron Corporation from 1981 to 1983, with responsibility for product development of commercial compact cyclotrons, and was acting head of the manufacturing group in 1983. Prior to that, he was a research staff physicist from 1977 to 1981 at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in the Accelerator Technology Division where he participated in the National Cancer Institute program to develop a linac for cancer therapy and was a key member of the Radio Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) proof-of-principle demonstration effort. Robert has over 80 publications in the scientific and engineering literature and has given numerous talks and colloquia worldwide. He has a BS in physics from the University of Southwestern Louisiana, an MS in physics from Florida State University and a PhD in accelerator physics from Texas A&M University. He has served on the Committee for Application in Physics within the American Physical Society and has worked as a visiting scientist in Dubna (JINR), Geneva (CERN) and Canada (Chalk River), and has worked in Saudi Arabia on a mission for the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Marianne attended Annapolis High School and was in the Navy’s cooperative work-college program while attending Virginia Polytechnic Institute, where she majored in physics and graduated with honors in 1968. She received a fellowship at Florida State University to pursue graduate studies in experimental nuclear physics. While at Florida State she met her future husband, Robert, also a physics graduate student. After getting Masters Degrees from Florida State, they went on to pursue their PhDs together at Texas A&M University where they broke new ground as the first married couple in the physics graduate studies program. In addition to sharing the graduate school experience, they shared the responsibility of raising an infant son. Marianne also served as President of Graduate Student Council and as a graduate student advisor to the Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of the Graduate School. After receiving her Ph.D. in 1976 from Texas A&M (with honors and a Distinguished Graduate Student award), Marianne became a post-doctoral fellow at the Los Alamos National Laboratory doing medium energy nuclear physics research. She went on to serve as a staff physicist involved in plasma physics research and applied nuclear technology.
She left Los Alamos in 1981 with Robert when he accepted a position as Vice-President of R&D at The Cyclotron Corporation in Berkeley, California. Marianne started a consulting firm specializing in computer control and data acquisition software for scientific research and medical applications. Then in 1985 she co-founded AccSys Technology with Robert and two colleagues from Los Alamos. As Executive VP and COO of AccSys Marianne was head of all business operations and was also a member of the Board of Directors. In addition to her corporate duties as COO of AccSys, Marianne worked in a number of organizations to assist small business development:

•Founding board member in 1991, 1995 President, and 1996 Chairwoman of Academy of Technology Entrepreneurs and Innovators
•Testified in Congressional hearings for 1993 SBIR program renewal legislation.
•Elected delegate to 1995 White House Conference on Small Business; Region IX Technology Issue Implementation Chair
•Served on American Electronics Association Board of Directors from 1997 to 2000.
Over the past two decades, Marianne has given numerous invited talks at professional meetings, secondary schools, and universities on a variety of topics, including promoting the role of women in science and engineering and alternative careers in business for scientists. She has also been invited by several groups to recount her company's experiences with various Federal technology transfer, technology partnership and defense reinvestment initiatives.

 

Dr. Elizabeth Bell

Dr. Elizabeth Bell received a B. S. in Chemistry from The University of Texas at San Antonio in 1996. She later joined the research group of Sherry Yennello at the Cyclotron Institute at Texas A&M University and earned a Ph. D. in Nuclear Chemistry in May 2005. After receiving her Ph. D., Dr. Bell took a postdoctoral position at Los Alamos National Laboratory where she for the X-2 division in collaboration with the C-INC division. At present she is an instructor at Blinn College in Bryan, TX, teaching chemistry and physics.

 

Dr. John C. (Kris) Hagel

Dr. Kris Hagel enrolled in Texas A & M University in Sept., 1977, graduated with a BS in May, 1981, and with a PhD in Dec, 1986. His doctoral dissertation subject was a study of the properties of hot nuclei. After completion of the PhD, Dr. Hagel spent one year as a Post-Doc in France at GANIL, the French National Accelerator where he participated in experiments and analysis of experiments dealing with the subject of multifragmentation. Dr. Hagel then spent one year in Germany working with a group that concentrated on experiments with gamma rays and their application in the analysis of hot nuclei. After that, he then returned to the Cyclotron Institute where he continues to be involved in research regarding reaction dynamics of hot nuclei.  In addition, for the last ten years, Dr. Hagel and his group have been involved in the planning, construction, execution and analysis of a relativistic heavy ion experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York.

 

Dr. Jehanne Simon-Gillo

Dr. Jehanne Simon-Gillo obtained her Bachelor of Science Degree from Juniata College in 1985. As a graduate student at Texas A&M, she was a Nuclear Chemistry major with an emphasis in relativistic heavy ion physics research. She obtained her Ph.D. Degree at Texas A&M University in 1991. She was invited to Los Alamos National Lab as the Construction Manager for the fabrication of a 24 ton nuclear physics detector for a heavy ion experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory. She held the position of Physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1990-2001. She was an active member of PHENIX, a high energy nuclear physics experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory. PHENIX will study the physics of the early universe by attempting to re-create the "Big Bang" in the laboratory. She was appointed Project Manager for the PHENIX Silicon Multiplicity Vertex Detector (MVD) and was responsible for the design, construction and commissioning of a 35,000 channel silicon detector into PHENIX. At Los Alamos, she was also a member of the NA44 Collaboration at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, and spent approximately 3 months each year in Geneva,Switzerland.

Her present position is Acting Director of Facilities and Project Management Division, Office of Nuclear Physics, Department of Energy. She aids in establishing the vision, strategic plans, goals, and objectives for the scientific and technical activities supported by the DOE Office of Nuclear Physics Facilities and Project Management Division, and Office of Nuclear Physics in general. She is responsible for the operations of the nuclear physics accelerator facilities and the development of new capabilities at these facilities. Since 2001, she also has had the responsibility of Program Manager for Facilities and Instrumentation in the Office of Nuclear Physics.She is responsible for all major scientific instrumentation in the nuclear physics program budget and their required documentation.