MEC SPL Upgrade

Peregrine McGehee

The MEC Short Pulse Laser new platform work in the target chamber, which included significant changes to hutch radiation monitoring and shielding, is a PEMP goal for SLAC. This was successfully demonstrated with the in-house experiment X455 [Lee: Commissioning of compact HAPG spectrometer with higher X-ray photon energy from 8 keV to 24 keV] and will be used for the upcoming X523 [Khaghani: Commissioning of a standard beam-delivery platform for high-intensity laser experiments at MEC].

In conjunction with the SPL work MEC is also commissioning two new spectrometers – XRTS and XTCS [X-ray Transmission Crystal Spectrometer]. The Cu K-alpha and K-beta lines are clearly visible in this image from the XTCS on-board camera taken on 6 August 2022.

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Vera C. Rubin Observatory Presentation by Peregrine McGehee

Peregrine presented a short introduction to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory at a recent MEC SRD team meeting: PDF of slide deck is attached.

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name	A brief introduction to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.pdf
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Hello Goodbye!

	Antonio Gilardi has joined the ECS Delivery group as the new MFX and UED Point of Contact. Before this new adventure, Antonio carried out a PostDocs at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on Machine Learning techniques for laser combining. His background is closely related to particle accelerators; he was an operator and scientist on a small electron accelerator at CERN. About other side tasks, he was strictly involved in scientific collaboration with the University of Naples and CERN, supervising various PhD projects. During his free time, Antonio enjoys playing and watching sports (e.g., soccer, volleyball, table tennis) and playing board games.
	Mitchell Cabral has joined the ECS Platforms Development team as a Control System Integrator, whose focus is supporting developing projects (L2HE and MEC-U primarily). Mitchell is a recent undergraduate from CSU, Chico and worked with SLAC for the past year to develop a prototype computer vision system robot for Dr. Diling Zhu in XPP. Some of his hobbies/interest include cooking, the Sacramento Kings, volleyball, rock climbing, (hiking to/swimming in) large bodies of water (with a nice beverage).
	Divya Thanasekaran has joined the ECS Delivery group as a Staff Software Engineer and the new CXI Controls and Data Point of Contact. Divya has a masters in Computer Engineering from New York University and prior to joining SLAC she was the Lead Device Control Software Engineer for Primary Mirror Control System of the Giant Magellan Telescope. In her term there, she was involved in subsystem specific resource priorities and scheduling. She carried the software from design inception, through Design reviews, testing and test readiness reviews as well as initial successful system test campaigns. Her background is in Embedded Systems, C/C++, Control Software using EtherCAT. She loves to hike, run and is currently learning how to play tennis.
	Christian Tsoi-A-Sue Christian Tsoi-A-Sue has joined the ECS Delivery group as a Staff Engineer 1 and his current focus is providing support for CXI as the SEA. He studied robotics engineering and electrical engineering at UC Santa Cruz and graduated in 2019. His areas of interest are embedded systems/microcontrollers, C and Python. In his free time he enjoys playing pickleball, watching movies and playing pokemon go with friends.
	Josue Zamudio Josue Zamudio Estrada is a Control and Data Systems Intern on the LCLS Exp. Control Systems Delivery Team. He studied Computer Engineering and recently graduated from UC Santa Cruz. On his free time he likes to skate board, fish, and spending time with friends.
	Lana Jansen-Whealey has joined the ECS Delivery Group as a long-term intern and is excited to continue learning about hutch instrumentation and software interfacing. She recently graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo with a physics degree and has been working at SLAC since July 12. She prefers to spend her free time visiting national parks, hiking, doing ballet, cooking, and making new friends!