Deputy Director Benson
To Return to Research

Benson

Berkeley Lab Director Steve Chu announced yesterday that Deputy Director for Operations Sally Benson will leave her current position, effective Feb. 1, 2005, to return to the Earth Sciences Division as a full-time researcher. "The Laboratory has greatly benefited from Sally's vision and energy," Chu wrote in a note to Laboratory staff.
Benson was named Deputy Director for Operations by former Lab Director Charles Shank in April 2001 and prior to that was Division Director for Earth Sciences. Her scientific endeavors will continue in the areas of groundwater hydrology and carbon sequestration. Go here to read Chu's memo.

The National Science Foundation has established a new research institute at Stanford University dedicated to tackling environmental pollution problems at the molecular level. A major focus of the Stanford Environmental Molecular Science Institute will be on how heavy metal contamination in water, soils and sediments interacts with the surfaces of environmental solids and bacteria. The Stanford team will collaborate with scientists and engineers at seven other institutions, including Berkeley Lab. Full story.

Phone, Networking
Repairs Tomorrow

Maintenance on the Lab's telephone and networking electrical systems will be performed tomorrow. The work is not expected to cause disruption to telephone or networking systems. However, the possibility of an outage always exists. If there is an emergency and no dial tone is available, activate the nearest building fire alarm and wait for emergency personnel to respond. A Lab-wide public address announcement will inform employees at the beginning and completion of the work.

Students Getting 'Edge'
In Program, Lab Visit

Berkeley Lab will be host 40 underrepresented minority and woman graduate students from UC Berkeley tomorrow on the last day of the National Science Foundation-sponsored Berkeley Edge program. The conference identifies and encourages qualified graduate school candidates in the sciences, engineering, math and computing sciences and matches students and faculty members for three days. At the Lab from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, they will hold a poster session in the cafeteria, tour the Advanced Light Source, and engage in small group discussions with researchers. Go here for more detail on the conference.

New On-Line Travel
Booking Tool Demo Set

A new online booking tool for Laboratory travel, named "Cliqbook," will debut Nov. 22.  Cliqbook has the capability to search popular web sites as well as the agency reservations system for a comprehensive low-fare selection. An introductory demonstration of the program will be offered on Monday from 1:30 to 3 p.m. in the Building 50 auditorium. This session and a series of hands-on training classes are available for enrollment through the employee self-service website under "travel" here.  For questions, contact [email protected]. See next Friday's issue of The View for details on the program.

Learn to Relax,
In an Instant

Employees are invited to attend a workshop to learn a variety of useful and immediately helpful deep breathing exercises, visualizations, and simple desk-side stretches. The class takes place Monday at 11 a.m., in Building 2-100B. These tools can help staff feel less stressed and more energized. Laurie Yamamoto, from UC Berkeley's Tang Center, will instruct. Go here to register (ASD 9038).