Published on the 29th November 2022 by ANSTO Staff
Two ANSTO staff members at The Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering have been recognised by their peers for their contribution to neutron scattering by theAustralian Neutron Beam Users Group (ANBUG) at the recent ANBUG-AINSE Neutron Scattering Symposium.
Principal instrument scientist and University of Wollongong Adjunct Associate Professor Kirrily Rule received the ANBUG Neutron Award for outstanding research in neutron science and leadership promoting the Australian neutron scattering community for more than ten years.
As an instrument scientist co-responsible for the thermal triple-axis spectrometer Taipan, she has assisted many hundreds of scientists with experiments that investigate the collective motion of atoms within solids.
A/Prof Rule is also an internationally recognised leader in understanding low dimensional and frustrated magnetic materials.
As a Principal investigator for the FLEET Centre of Excellence in Future Low Energy Electronics, she provides expertise in conducting experiments using neutron and synchrotron characterisation techniques.
She is currently working with Distinguished Prof Xiaolin Wang and Dr David Cortie on atomically thin materials.
A/Prof Rule has been the National Honorary Secretary of the Australian institute of Physics since 2017.
Dr Andrew Nelson received theANBUG Technical Award for outstanding service contributing to technical aspects of neutron scattering by university/institute staff or an instrument scientist who has gone above and beyond to facilitate use of instruments from a technical perspective.
Dr Nelson has expertise in the development of software for scientific computing and technical computing using Python.
He contributed to 2020 publication of the Fundamental algorithms for scientific computing using SciPy 1.0, a work that has received more than 14,000 citations.
In 2006 he published the paperCo-refinement of multiple-contrast neutron/X-ray reflectivity data using MOTOFIT). In 2019 he released refnx, which is the successor open-source software and is a model-based neutron and X-ray reflectometry data analysis package written in Python.
“Our user community is fortunate to be able to draw on the skills of Kirrily and Andrew, who have world leading expertise in their respective fields,” said Dr Jamie Schulz, Leader, Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering.
“Congratulations also to the other ANBUG award winners; Dr Isaac Gresham for Outstanding (PhD Prize), Dr Teng Lu (Young Scientist Award) and Prof. Jill Trewhella (Career Award).”
