Today we implemented two major changes to the structure of the Bragg Institute: (1) the Institute has merged with the National Deuteration Facility; and (2) we have formed a Major Capital Projects Group to manage the $37M NBI-2 Project announced in the Federal Budget of 12th May 2009.
As part of the merger between the National Deuteration Facility with the Bragg Institute, we have formed a new larger "soft-matter" group including all the soft-matter research staff associated with our small-angle scattering machines and reflectometers, together with the chemical and bio-deuteration staff in the National Deuteration Facility.
The combined group will be led by Prof. Peter Holden, who will relocate to the Bragg Institute Building. We are about to commence design of a new building extension, designed to hold 150 extra people, which should be sufficient to hold all staff and users for the combined Institute for the next 10 years, in which time we hope to have 18 fully commissioned instruments at OPAL operating in excess of 300 days per year.
The new building should be ready in two years time, whereupon the National Deuteration Facility, including all its facilitiues and staff will move into the common home.
We have also appointed Dr. Frank Klose to lead the $37M NBI-2 project, and to coordinate our portfolio of existing capital and commercial projects, including PELICAN, SIKA, KOOKABURRA, the Beryllium-Filter option on TAIPAN, our polarised 3He project with the Institut Laue Langevin, and our commitments to build two data-acquisition and control systems for NECSA in South Africa.
Frank is a very experienced scientist/project manager, with extensive relevant experience doing a similar job at the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge in the USA. He also did much of the work writing the $37M NBI-2 proposal for the Australian Government, and successfully acted for Jamie Schulz as the Institute's Operations Manager, while Jamie was leading ANSTO's Safety & Radiation Services Division for 6 months in 2008-9.
Published: 01/07/2009