Stuart serves as the Division Director for the Data Science and Systems Integration (DSSI) Division. Stuart oversees a division responsible for research and development in data science and advanced instrumentation and operation of the critical underlying controls and data infrastructure of the NSLS-II.
Throughout Stuart’s career he has focused on both applying advanced x-ray scattering techniques to the study of condensed matter physics and the research, design and construction of light source instrumentation. In addition to Stuart’s work on x-ray instrumentation, he has developed scientific software for data acquisition and analysis. Stuart is a core developer of the EPICS areaDetector project and lead the early stages of the Bluesky development at the NSLS-II.
After graduating with a M.Sci. degree in physics from the University of Durham, Stuart undertook his thesis work in the X-ray Scattering group in the Physics Department of the University of Durham graduating with a Ph.D. in Physics.
Presentation Title:
Self-driving Multimodal Experiments at the NSLS-II
Presentation Abstract:
Two main trends is currently changing how science is performed at lightsource user facilities. One is an increasing trend in materials characterization at Scientific User Facilities is to use more than one technique to fully understand a material over several months. The second trend is a move towards “discovery science” where large sample sets, and automation can uncover trends and features in materials. These trends are accelerated though an increased availability of automation, robotics and AI/ML techniques to provide autonomous self-driving facilities. This presentation will describe the framework and strategy used at the NSLS-II which allows for multimodal measurements using distributed AI/ML agents to inform the direction of the other in real time. The necessary infrastructure improvements along with questions for the future directions will be presented.