User:Lascencio/sandbox

Stephen R Leone

Great job and great formatting! 20/20

Abstract (Andres Garcia)

Dr. Stephen Robert Leone, (born 19^th May 1948 in Queens, New York City) a physical chemist, obtained his Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry at Northwestern University in 1970, followed by his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley in 1974 with Professor C. Bradley Moore. Leone became a professor at the University of Southern California from 1974-1976, and in 1976 he began working at the University of Colorado as a professor within the department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Physics. He also took upon a series of fellowships within the Joint Institute for Lab Astrophysics (JILA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), throughout his time as a professor. Some of Leone’s numerous honors and awards include: The American Chemical Society Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry (1983), The National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellowship, Department of Defense (2010), and The Milton Kahn Annual Lectureship Recipient (2016). In 2002, Leone became a professor of Chemistry and Physics at the University of California, Berkeley and the principal investigator of the Chemical Dynamics Beamline at the Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Leone is currently working with laser spectroscopy to understand the chemical dynamics of the femtosecond and attosecond laser pulse production, as femtosecond experiments often explore the effects of electron dynamics of nuclear motion, but the development of light sources offering attosecond (as) time resolution follows the electrons themselves. Leone’s research group is also trying to understand the electron dynamics of molecules and solid bodies (metals, semiconductors) using laser spectroscopy.

Biography

Early Life (Leo Ascencio)

Stephen Leone was born on May 19, 1948 in Queens, New York City. His father Dominic, a Sears Roebuck worker, and mother Annie, a schoolteacher, played a pivotal role throughout his childhood and his inclination to the sciences. At the age of five, Leone and his family moved to Batavia, Illinois. His mother, instructed him in subjects such as reading and mathematics, before he endeavored in his first academic journey. As a kid, Leone would often disassemble electronic devices such as small electric motors, that his father brought back from his business trips, in order to uncover the function and purpose of each piece of the puzzle. Additionally, he liked to spend time in activities that required philosophical and creative innovation. These activities included: building models, playing chess, and using a chemistry set.

Throughout his high school education, Leone took the initiative to challenge himself beyond the classroom material and tackled advanced mathematics and physics courses at a college level. Leone also took upon a mechanical drawing course while in high school which he states helped him later in his career. It would allow him to design and invent his first machines for the laboratory. Furthermore, Leone won the science award at his high school graduation.

Education (Leo Ascencio)

After high school, Leone attended Northwestern University. There he performed exceptionally well in freshman chemistry that his professor, Ed King, suggested he skip freshman chemistry and go right into organic chemistry. While at Northwestern, Leone became an undergraduate researcher under Du Shriver. During his time with Shriver, Leone used a recently acquired laser Raman spectrometer to perform a polarization-dependent single crystal Raman study, which subsequently lead to his very first publication. In this publication, Leone along with Brian Swanson and Du Shriver, investigated molecular vibrations of Tetraethylammonium Pentachloroindate (III) using single-crystal Raman laser spectroscopy since the modes of InCl₅^2- and other MX₅ species were difficult to assign during that time. This exposure to lasers eventually focused Leone in the direction of physical chemistry with emphasis on lasers and electronics. He graduated with a B.A. in Chemistry from Northwestern University in 1970. 

After Northwestern, Leone attended the University of California, Berkeley. In the summer before UC Berkeley, however, he acquired a job at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. There he was exposed to discussions by notable people such as Edward Teller. It was at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that a seminar on the applications of lasers made him realize that he wanted to work with lasers at UC Berkeley when he began in the following Fall. While at UC Berkeley, he joined the Brad Moore’s group and he had the opportunity to work with a Nd:YAG laser to study chemical dynamics and was among the first students, along with Jack Finzi, to establish this laser system as an instrument that is beneficial to chemistry. He graduated with a Ph.D. in Chemistry from UC Berkeley in 1974. 

Leone’s first academic job was at the University of Southern California as an assistant professor. ^[2] Due to the low amount of resources, Leone was forced to learn how to apply for and obtain grants and even made a video on how to get grants that was popular among some of the faculty at USC. During his second year at USC, Leone was contacted by the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) and the University of Colorado, Boulder with regards to a possible job offer. A short time after an interview he was granted, in which Leone felt like he did not do well in, JILA and the University of Colorado, Boulder offered him a job which Leone accepted since it consisted of a large amount of resources that were not available to him at USC. Leone joined the University of Colorado, Boulder and JILA in 1976. 

One of Leone’s achievements at JILA was his contribution of “detecting infrared vibrational emission from molecules, using a circular variable filter to obtain modest spectral resolution with background-limited infrared detectors.”  Furthermore, Leone, along with Barney Ellison, Veronica Bierbaum and Jean Futrell, observed the first vibrational emission from an ion-molecule reaction.

After about twenty-five years at the JILA and the University of Colorado, Boulder, Leone joined the Chemical Dynamics Beamline at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory after receiving a call from Dan Neumark asking him if he was interested in being part of the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. They needed someone who could be director of the Chemical Dynamics Beamline and also institute a chemical dynamics program in the chemistry department at Berkeley. ^[1] Leone has been at the Chemical Dynamics Beamline and the University of California, Berkeley since 2002. 

Current Employment/Position (Andres Garcia)

In 2002, Leone became a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and the principal investigator of the chemical dynamics beamline at the Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The Leone’s lab worked in partnership with Jun Ye in Boulder, DOE and the Center for X-Ray Optics with the support of an AFOSR MURO grant to study ultrafast soft X-Ray studies with high harmonic generation. Pivotal to his current research of isolating attosecond pulses to study the timescales of electron dynamics in atoms, molecules, and nanoparticles. Attosecond experimental procedures have revealed new dynamical time scales in atoms, molecules, liquids and solids , which has set the groundwork for his research interest in the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory.

The Leone laboratory is exploring the chemical dynamics of the femtosecond and attosecond laser pulse production, alongside electron dynamics of molecules and solid bodies through high power driving lasers, with the ultimate goal of performing attosecond pump-probe experiments . Attosecond science has the prospective to understand fundamental problems of interest in atomic, molecular, and condensed matter physics . For example, the attosecond transient absorption can differentiate field-induced tunneling in solid silicon to time-resolved four-wave mixing in Ne atoms

Leone’s primary research areas of interests are: attosecond physics and chemistry, nanoparticle fluorescence intermittency by probing with near field optical microscopy, and ultrafast laser investigations and soft x-ray probing of valence and core levels; to understand chemical dynamics (collision processes and Kinetic investigations). Leone’s laboratory is using the chemical dynamics beamline at the Advanced Light Source for surface probing of neutrals desorbed by scanning ion microprobes.

One of Leone’s main research goal is understanding quantum dot blinking and pump-probe ultrafast studies of semiconductor nanocrystals, through intervals of fluorescence and its effects with wavelength excitation. While his other projects include studying aerosol light scattering and spectroscopy, aerosol reactions.