International Symposium on Nuclear Science

Keynote speakers

Dr. Bertram Blank is a senior researcher at the Laboratoire de la Physique des 2 Infinis de Bordeaux in France (LP2iB, former CENBG) working with exotic nuclei, mainly on proton-rich nuclei. His main subjects are "exotic" radioactivities (two-proton radioactivity, beta-delayed multi-particle emission) and weak-interaction studies with beta decay, notably super-allowed beta-decay of the 0+ - 0+ type and mirror transition. A major setup under his responsibility is the WISArD  device installed at ISOLDE/CERN for the study of beta-neutrino angular correlations and beta shapes. He performs experiments at GANIL, ISOLDE, JYFL, RIKEN and GSI. He received the Silver Medal of CNRS in 2004. 

 

Professor Klaus Blaum studied physics at the Johannes Gutenberg-University in Mainz (Germany). From 2000-2004 he worked as PostDoc and Research Fellow at the European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. From 2004 to 2007 he was leader of a Helmholtz Research Group in Mainz (Germany), where he habilitated in 2006. In 2007 he was appointed Director at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg and as Professor at the University of Heidelberg.

For his groundbreaking research, Klaus Blaum was awarded numerous prizes, including the Mattauch-Herzog-Prize 2005, the Helmholtz-Prize 2012, the EPS Lise Meitner Prize 2020, and the Otto-Hahn-Prize 2021. Since 2019 he is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. From 2020-2023 Klaus Blaum was the Scientific Vice-President for the Chemistry, Physics and Technology Section of the Max-Planck-Society.

 

Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Norbert Pietralla is a nuclear spectroscopist and accelerator scientists. He has studied physics with Peter von Brentano in Cologne where he received his PhD in 1996. After his postdoc phase at Yale University and at Cologne, he became Asst. Prof. and later Assoc. Prof. at State Univ. of New York at Stony Brook and then Professor at the Univ. of Cologne. In 2006 he became Full Professor at TU Darmstadt and Director of its Institute for Nuclear Physics with its superconducting electron accelerator S-DALINAC. Amongst other things, Professor Pietralla contributed comprehensive experimental data on proton-neutron mixed-symmetry states of heavy nuclei, formulated the Confined Beta-Soft rotor model for shape-transitional nuclei, co-discovered the rare competitive double-gamma radioactivity, first demonstrated energy recycling in a multi-turn Energy-Recovery LINAC, and pioneered photonuclear reactions with quasi-monochromatic MeV-ranged photon beams from laser-Compton backscattering reactions. He is the spokes-person of several research collaborations, published so far more than 500 peer-reviewed scientific articles, including 5 review articles, and guided 51 PhD students to their doctoral degrees.

 

Professor Paddy Regan is Professor of Nuclear Metrology at the University of Surrey, UK and also holds a joint position at the UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL), where he is the Head of Science for the Medical, Marine & Nuclear Department. His nuclear physics research has focused on the application of gamma-ray spectroscopic probes to study structural evolution both as a function of proton-to-neutron ratio and as function of angular momentum. His has held organisational leadership positions for a number of international collaborations including RISING@GSI, EURICA@RIBF, DESPEC@FAIR and currently, the Fast TIMing Array (FATIMA) which allows the precision determination of nuclear electromagnetic transition rates in the pico to nanoseconds regime. In parallel with his nuclear structure research, Professor Regan’s group at NPL undertake studies of complex nuclear decay data allowing the provision of primary and secondary radionuclide standards and reference materials which have direct application in the nuclear energy, environmental science and nuclear medicine sectors. Cross-over studies have included some ‘big science’ questions such as cross-section measurements related to nucleosynthesis of the elements formed in stellar interiors and detailed studies of the nuclear fission process and link to direct applications including nuclear forensics; waste management; and nuclear medicine.

 

Prof. Dr. Hiroyoshi SAKURAI received PhD in 1993 from the University of Tokyo (UT), then he has been devoted to the research of the nuclear structure and reactions by utilizing fast radioactive isotope beams, especially neutron-rich isotope beams. In the period of 1995 to 2000, he contributed to the conceptual design for the “Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory” facility. He was appointed as a chief scientist of RIKEN in 2005, and as a professor in University of Tokyo in 2011. He has been appointed as the Director of RIKEN Nishina Center as of April 2020. He was awarded the "Nishina Memorial Prize" by the Nishina Memorial Foundation in 2015 for the nuclear structure study and the "21st Century Invention Award" by the Japanese Institute for Invention and Innovation in 2018 for a patent relevant to the nuclear transmutation.

 

Professor Andrew Stuchbery is Head of the Department of Nuclear Physics and Accelerator Applications at the Australian National University (ANU), which operates Australia’s Heavy Ion Accelerator Facility. His main research interests are in nuclear structure physics investigated through gamma-ray and electron spectroscopy. Throughout his career he has focused on magnetic moment measurements, developing and exploiting techniques applicable to short-lived nuclear states and radioactive beams. His current research explores the nature of weakly collective nuclei and the emergence of collective structures from the underlying nucleonic motion, through measurements of moments, lifetimes, Coulomb excitation, and electric monopole transition strengths. He also has an interest in the detection of dark matter particles by nuclear physics techniques and is the ANU Node Manager for the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics.

 

Professor Aurora Tumino is professor of physics at the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture of the Kore University of Enna, Italy and scientist – currently head of the Research Division at the Laboratori Nazionali del Sud - Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Catania, Italy. Past fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, her research activity is focused on topics related to Nuclear Astrophysics, in particular on the application of indirect techniques to study two-body reactions between charged particles at sub-Coulomb energies. Member of several reviewer and editorial pools and research committees, her research activity is also documented by more than 300 publications in international journals, and by more than 80 invited talks/seminars to Conferences, Workshops and Schools. Her main achievements concern the study of d+d fusion reactions for the BBN nucleosynthesis, 12C+12C fusion processes relevant to understanding stellar carbon burning, and the determination of the Coulomb-free proton-proton S-wave scattering length to study the violation of charge symmetry in the nuclear force.