April 08 Issue - Employee Monthly Magazine

Kudos

Belangia named IST Division leader

David Belangia is the new Information Systems and Technology (IST) Division leader. Belangia has more than 30 years of experience as an information technology professional. Before joining the Laboratory, he was the chief information officer at the Nevada Test Site. He has been serving as the acting IST Division leader and previously was the deputy division leader.

Grace certified as Lab's first LSS Black Belt

Tonya Grace of Process Management and Continuous Improvement became the first Black Belt to certify under the new Los Alamos National Security, LLC Lean Six Sigma program. To become certified, she went through months of intensive training and successfully completed performance improvement projects.

Gray to serve on NMA board

George T. "Rusty" Gray of Structure/Property Relations has been selected to serve on the National Materials Advisory Board, an organization of the National Academies. The National Materials Advisory Board is the pre-eminent source of independent materials assessments for the nation. Gray is a Laboratory Fellow and a fellow of the American Physical Society and ASM International.

Steinhaus named CPO director

Kurt Steinhaus is the new Community Programs Office (CPO) director. As director, Steinhaus will lead CPO as it supports the Laboratory's investment in regional education, economic development, and community giving. Steinhaus brings extensive experience in education to the Laboratory, having recently served as Education Policy advisor for Governor Bill Richardson and deputy cabinet secretary of education. Before that, he served as the Laboratory's program manager for the Education and Postdoc Office in the Science and Technology Base Programs Office.

Choi receives young scientist award

Sukgeun Choi received a 2008 Young Scientist Award at the 35th Physics and Chemistry of Semiconductor Interfaces Conference held recently in Santa Fe. The awards are given to junior scientists, including graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to encourage their continuing studies on surface and interface of solid-state materials.

Choi is a postdoctoral researcher in the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies and received his bachelor's and master's degrees in physics in 1995 and 1997, respectively, from Kyung Hee University, Seoul, South Korea. In 2006, he received his doctorate in materials science and engineering from the University of Minnesota, where he explored the unique growth mechanism of rare-earth group-V compounds on III-V semiconductors in molecular beam epitaxy. He joined the Laboratory in April 2006 and is working on synthesis of semiconductor nanowires under Tom Picraux's supervision.

Before coming to the United States, Choi also worked at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology in Seoul as a research associate.