From the Directors
Dear Colleagues,

At Cornell, the fall semester began on September 2nd with a hybrid approach to teaching (with in-person and online), robust virus testing, and modifications to the academic calendar. Cornell provides information on its web site on the the status Cornell Ithaca campus. 

At CHESS, the accelerator start up began on September 9th after the facility was shut down for approximately 10 weeks for its scheduled summer maintenance period. This week beamline commissioning will start to test newly installed beamline upgrades and optimize beamline performance for the upcoming experimental run. Starting Sept. 23rd, CHESS users will be able to take data remotely at CHESS beamlines. Cornell University is significantly restricting visits to campus by individuals not part of the residential Cornell community through the fall semester. Therefore, out-of-town users will not be allowed to visit CHESS but will be supported via remote and mail-in capabilities. Remote operation is a new mode for the majority of the CHESS beamlines. Detailed planning and testing went into preparing for this new access mode during the summer shut down. The new “Remote Access User Guide”will be available online.
While we will not be able to recreate the experience of doing in person experiments at CHESS in the new remote access mode, we will provide access to the unique experimental capabilities at the facility and support the research program of our scientific community. CHESS users and staff will gain important experience in performing experiments remotely which will allow us improving and expanding remote operations and remote capabilities for future experimental runs.
On Thursday, September 17th, at 1pm (EDT), CHESS will hold an online CHESS town hall to introduce and demonstrate the new remote access capabilities. The Zoom link will be shared prior to the meeting/is here.

Last but not least this newsletter features science highlights and other updates:
  • After more than 32 years of research at CHESS, Ken Finkelstein retired from the facility.
  • The accelerator group continues to develop methods of improving beam stability across different spatial and temporal scales. An update can be found here.
  • To study how protein structures are impacted by external pressure a team of researchers developed a novel diamond anvil cell optimized for the study of macromolecules at external pressures up to 12kbar at the NSF, NIH and NY State supported FlexX beamline.

We will continue to provide updates on CHESS operations under what we expect to be changing pandemic conditions through the CHESS web site, this newsletter and by email. 

Stay healthy,
Joel Brock, Director, CHESS
Elke Arenholz, Associate Director, CHESS
CHESS Virtual Town Hall
As CHESS resumes user operations this fall, things will be a little bit different. On September 17th, we are inviting all of our users (and the entire CHESS community) to learn how CHESS will operate remotely for the entire fall run, while also demonstrating the new remote access capabilities of the lab.
CHESS Awarded RAISE Grant by NSF
The collaboration created by RAISE converges structural materials data collected from the FAST and SMB beamlines at CHESS with the new technologies being developed at NSF High Performance Computing sites to create a Science Gateway.
Minimizing Deviations: Improving Beam Stability at CHESS
Particle storage rings are highly complex scientific instruments and minute changes in temperature, position or current through one of its many magnets can have a large impact on the position of the particle beam. At CHESS, the accelerator group works tirelessly to even further improve the beam position stability and with that to enhance experimental capabilities at the beamlines.
Biology Under Pressure: Beta-lactoglobulin survives under pressures as high as 9000 bar
To study how protein structures are impacted by external pressure a team of researchers developed a novel diamond anvil cell optimized for the study of macromolecules at external pressures up to .12kbar at the NSF, NIH and NY State supported FlexX beamline.
SERCCS Student Highlight: Samuel Barton
Samuel Barton came into his internship with Summer Engineering and Research for Community College Students thinking he would be working with high pressure deep ocean particles, but the COVID-19 pandemic steered his internship in another direction.
Ken Finkelstein Retires after 32 years at CHESS
In February 1988, Ken first arrived at CHESS with his first assignment: to build a wiggler. Since that time, Ken has been instrumental in keeping CHESS at the forefront of X-Ray emission spectroscopy, and that first wiggler now sits on display at SSRL.  Ken has also since retired, leaving his mark on not only CHESS, but the synchrotron community at large.
Issue No. 75 • 2020.9.15
CHESS
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