This page contains archived content on a former member of the Jefferson Lab leadership team.
Dr. Swapan Chattopadhyay
Former Associate Director for Accelerator Operations, Research & Development
Dr. Swapan Chattopadhyay was the Associate Director for Accelerator Operations, Research & Development, where he was responsible for all aspects of Jefferson Lab's accelerator program, including research and development, as well as operations, maintenance, and upgrades of the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility. Dr. Chattopadhyay evaluated the programs on a yearly basis to continually enhance them. He was responsible for implementing JLab policies and programs as they related to the accelerator division. He also developed and ensured productive relationships with appropriate JLab stakeholders, including national and international collaborations, funding agencies, and managing organizations.
Dr. Chattopadhyay led a multi-disciplinary team of more than 350 in a multi-faceted high-tech environment involving the physics of particles and light beams, forefront electronics, superconductivity, surface science, cryogenics, and computer process control applications. This team participated in the multi-lab effort to provide design, engineering, and construction support for the $1.4 billion Spallation Neutron Source in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and joined the international TESLA collaboration for linear electron-positron colliders based on superconducting radio-frequency linear accelerators. In addition, the division worked on forefront research and development of unique sources of coherent, powerful, and ultrashort pulses of light of all colors in the visible and beyond for various applications in basic and applied sciences and industry. The team interacted with academia and industry via the Applied Research Center in the Jefferson Center for Research and Technology.
Dr. Chattopadhyay was known for his contributions in physics and accelerator technology impacting many fields: high energy physics, nuclear science, synchrotron radiation, FELs, and ultrafast phenomena marked a few of his major contributions. The Advanced Light Source (ALS) at Berkeley Lab for synchrotron radiation sciences, the particle collider (PEP-II) at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) for studies of the matter-antimatter asymmetry in nature, and the recent advances in various femtosecond-x-ray source development towards studies of ultrafast phenomena.
Following undergraduate studies in India, Dr. Chattopadhyay received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1982. Following a two-year association as Scientific Attache at CERN (1982-1984), he returned to Berkeley Lab in 1984, where he made leading contributions to the ALS from its design to commissioning (1984-1992) and was the Founder/Director (1992) of the Center for Beam Physics until his move to Jefferson Lab in 2001. While at LBNL he contributed to the development of accelerators in Italy, India, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the People's Republic of China, and at SLAC. He established the first collaboration between LBNL and Jefferson Lab on the development of FELs based on the superconducting radiofrequency technology.
Named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1994, Dr. Chattopadhyay shared the Halbach Prize (1996, LBNL, USA) and received the U. S. Department of Energy's Certificate of Distinction for Mentorship in Energy Research Undergraduate Laboratory Fellowship Program at national laboratories. In 1995, he was honored by the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute as a Distinguished Visiting Scientist of the Year. He is cited in the 2000 Outstanding Scientists of the Twentieth Century for "Outstanding Contributions in Particle Physics, Beams, and Femto Science".
Dr. Chattopadhyay served in various capacities on the Executive Board of the APS's Division of Physics of Beams, was a member of the European Physical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Optical Society of America, and was a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He served on the Beam Dynamics panel of the International Committee for Future Accelerators and the Governor's Advisory Board on the Virginia Biotechnology Initiative. He had been Editor-in-Chief (Western Hemisphere) of the international journal Particle Accelerators and the editor of many books and proceedings and reviewed technical journals, research proposals, and government agencies.