About the Speakers

Find out more information on the invited speakers.

Arantxa Arbe, Materials Physics Center, Spain

The scientific carrier of Arantxa Arbe (Research Professor of the Spanish National Research Council, CSIC, since 2009) has been focused on the study of structural and dynamical properties of liquids and glass-forming systems, with particular emphasis on polymers of increasing complexity (homopolymers, polymer blends, solutions, nano-composites, nano-structured systems, polymeric nano-particles, etc). Her investigation is strongly based on the application of scattering techniques, in particular neutrons. Her scientific achievements have given rise to about 240 publications in international journals, including eight reviews. She has also participated as a member in the Scientific Advisory Committee of prestigious neutron scattering research centers (like the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum in Garching, the European Spallation Source, ESS, in Lund, and the Institute Laue-Langevin in Grenoble), and in diverse proposal selection panels in neutron facilities, sometimes as chairperson.

Georg Ehlers, Spallation Neutron Source, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA

Dr. Ehlers joined Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2003 to lead the construction of the Cold Neutron Chopper Spectrometer (CNCS) at beam line 5 at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS). CNCS is a high-resolution, direct geometry, cold neutron, inelastic multi-chopper spectrometer, designed to make use of neutrons in the energy range below 50 meV. Dr. Ehlers led the construction of the instrument from 2003 to 2007 and its operation until 2017. In 2017 he assumed a more general role in the Neutron Technologies Division (NTD) to coordinate neutron instrumentation upgrade programs both at HFIR and at SNS. In 2019 became the head of the newly formed Neutron Instrument Technologies Section in NTD.

Judith Peters, Institute Laue-Langevin and Université Grenoble Alpes, France

Judith Peters graduated in Physics at the University Joseph Fourier Grenoble 1 and received her PhD in Theoretical Physics in 1988. She then had a post-doctoral position at the University of Heidelberg working on molecular dynamics simulations. After one year as exchange scientist at the University of St. Petersburg, 7 years as assistant professor at the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin and 10 years as scientist at the Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin, she holds now a professorship of Physics at Université Grenoble Alpes and has been nominated as a senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France in 2021. Her research interests comprise dynamical studies of biosystems including proteins, membranes, whole cells or nucleic acids by neutron scattering techniques. A particular emphasis is put on the study of adaptation techniques under extreme conditions.

Frank Schreiber, Universitaet Tuebingen, Germany

Frank Schreiber received his PhD in Experimental Physics in 1995. Following post-doctoral work at Princeton and his habilitation in Stuttgart he became a University Lecturer in Physical Chemistry in Oxford in 2002. In 2005 he moved to Tuebingen to succeed Wolfram Prandl as a Professor in Physics. His work using neutron and X-ray scattering, including diffraction and spectroscopy, is centered around soft, complex, and biomolecular forms of condensed matter, recently complemented by the development of machine learning tools for the analysis of scattering data. His research addresses questions of structure formation, dynamics, and phase transitions and has led to some 400 publications. Frank Schreiber received an honorary degree (Dr. h.c.) by the Slovak Academy of Sciences and chaired the KFN (German committee for research with neutrons) 2021-2023. He also served on numerous advisory panels for X-ray and neutron facilities