Jordanian Research Fellow Concludes Six Months at SRC
By John Morgan, SRC Science Writer
Zuheir El-Bayyari, a Jordanian researcher, is using science to close gaps. Originally trained as a theoretical physicist, El-Bayyari spent the past six months filling his own knowledge gap by learning about Synchrotron Infrared Microspectroscopy. He closed geographical gaps by traveling from the Middle East to the Middle West of the United States.
Now El-Bayyari hopes to close technological gaps and perhaps ease tensions in the Middle East by bringing back to Jordan the knowledge gained about how to design, construct, and commission an infrared beamline at SESAME (Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East), the forthcoming Middle East lightsource collaborative to be located in Jordan (www.sesame.org.jo).
"That's actually the objective of this," explains El-Bayyari. "When I go back to Jordan I will contribute to building the IR beamline at the SESAME project in Jordan."
El-Bayyari was working at the Synchrotron Radiation Center (SRC) at University of Wisconsin - Madison thanks to an International Atomic Energy Agency research fellowship and was hosted by Professor Carol Hirschmugl of the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and regular SRC user. El-Bayyari assisted Hirschmugl's team in its work on construction of a new infrared beamline at SRC as part of a $1-million award from NSF in summer 2006 (http://www.src.wisc.edu/news/newsletter/2006/fall_newsletter.10.02.06.htm).
"I met Zuheir in 2001 at a meeting in Jordan organized to bring potential SESAME users together," recounts Hirschmugl. "Zuheir has been participating in the construction of the new SRC IR beamline (SBIRI-UWM). In particular, Zuheir has been doing some assembly and alignment of several of the optical components for the beamline. He has also collaborated on initial experiments at the SRC 073 beamline, where the new IR interferometer and FPA detector are installed, and experiments to develop a new flow cell to look at living cells in the new beamline."
Also during his fellowship tenure, which started July 1, 2007 and recently concluded on January 1, 2008, El-Bayyari participated in three related meetings: the SRC Users Meeting, the Fall 2007 Wisconsin Free Electron Laser (WiFEL) symposium (http://www.wifel.wisc.edu/), and at the 2007 International Workshop on Infrared Microscopy and Spectroscopy (WIRMS) held in Awaji Island, Japan in September. http://www.uvsor.ims.ac.jp/WIRMS2007/
El-Bayyari credits his home institution in Jordan, Philadelphia University (http://www.philadelphia.edu.jo/) as being very encouraging of his desire to augment his knowledge of synchrotron research and stresses the importance of the SESAME project as a vehicle for closing further gaps and easing tensions that exist in his region.
"We have to try. We have to do our best to establish [SESAME]," he encourages. "Hopefully the SESAME project will contribute to the peace in the region."
Hirschmugl agrees and argues that these types of collaborations are critical for international expansion of cutting-edge science related to synchrotron light.
"These international collaborations are important because they transfer important knowledge from our established community to fledgling communities, and provide important opportunities to expose these researchers to state-of-the-art experiments as they are planning their experiments in their new institutions," she concludes.