Figure 1: GRETA Project Director Paul Fallon addressing the attendees of the GRETA Dedication Ceremony in the high-bay of Building 88

In April we had the opportunity to celebrate the completion of the main Berkeley Lab scope of the Gamma-ray Energy Tracking Array (GRETA) during a Director’s Review and Dedication workshop that featured speakers from around the U.S. and the world. It was fantastic to see the vision of GRETA, which was conceived about 30 years ago at Berkeley Lab, become reality. The workshop also featured a look back at the impact that Frank Stephens had on the nuclear physics landscape through his long career.

Advanced research computing (ARC) plays an ever increasing and critical role in Nuclear Science research and this issue of the NSD Newsletter features several recent developments in this field, from the release of a community-driven white paper on Software Infrastructure for Advanced Nuclear Physics Computing to a summary of the Nuclear Science Division’s Bayesian Uncertainty Quantification (BUQ) project that is exploring Machine Learning-based approaches to computationally-expensive Inverse Problem in several research areas across the division. Another example featured in this Newsletter is a machine learning framework in support of nuclear material safeguards measurements by the International Atomic Energy Agency through the optimization of the spectral performance of gamma-ray detectors. In the context of ARC there is also the noteworthy development, led by NSD, of an accelerated data pipeline called DELERIA for high-speed streaming of experimental events from GRETA to a supercomputer at ORNL for real time data analysis. This development is a major step towards streamlining the access of researchers at all sizes of facilities to supercomputing facilities.

At Berkeley Lab we are guided by a commitment to the three elements of Stewardship – taking care of the research, resources, and people entrusted to us. These have become an enduring mark of Berkeley Lab’s scientific and operational excellence and we are continuously endeavoring to  strengthen our workplace culture based on the Lab’s Stewardship Values. In times of uncertainty and rapid change it is ever more important to be guided by a North Star and strong values. Within the Nuclear Science Division we have therefore put a renewed focus on discussing the meaning of our stewardship values and provide individuals and teams with resources and tools to help them advance our workplace culture, which is summarized in this Newsletter.