Keane wins 2024 Gopal K. Shenoy Excellence in Beamline Science Award

Physicist Denis T. Keane is the 2024 recipient of the Gopal K. Shenoy Excellence in Beamline Science Award. He is a beamline scientist and director of the Dupont-Northwestern-Dow Collaborative Access Team (DND-CAT) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Photon Source (APS) at DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory. He is also a research professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Northwestern University.

The annual award recognizes active beamline scientists at the APS, a DOE Office of Science user facility, for significant contributions to research or instrumentation and support of the beamline user community. The APS Users Office, which grants the award, renamed it in 2017 in honor of the late Gopal K. Shenoy. Shenoy was an accomplished materials scientist closely involved in the inception of the APS as well as an enthusiastic supporter of scientists who conducted research there.

“It is a special honor to receive the Gopal K. Shenoy award,” said Keane. ​“Thirty years ago, Gopal welcomed us to the APS as we began building the DND beamlines, and his leadership was vital in enabling us and the APS to succeed. I am grateful to my scientific collaborators and the DND staff for our partnership, and to DuPont, Northwestern, Dow and the APS for their support.”

Keane has served as director of DND-CAT since 2005. Located in sector five of the APS, the state-of-the-art X-ray facility is unique in that it combines industrial scale testing and product development with academic vigor, meaning Keane has the challenging task of balancing the needs and expectations of both industry and academic partners. He is also taking on the job of upgrading the DND-CAT facility concurrently with the APS Upgrade.

“It is a special honor to receive the Gopal K. Shenoy award. Thirty years ago, Gopal welcomed us to the APS as we began building the DND beamlines, and his leadership was vital in enabling us and the APS to succeed. I am grateful to my scientific collaborators and the DND staff for our partnership, and to DuPont, Northwestern, Dow and the APS for their support.” — Denis T. Keane, physicist and director of DND-CAT  

During Keane’s time as director, DND-CAT has been an important contributor to the productivity of the APS, producing more than 1,200 papers. Nominators mentioned that only under truly extraordinary leadership can a beamline achieve, year after year, such a scientific impact.

Keane has also made significant direct contributions to science through his own research. He has been successful in developing and demonstrating new advanced synchrotron X-ray methods and has made an impact on the field of microtomography.

Those who nominated him commented on his patience, his problem solving ability and his dedication. They mentioned his commitment to teaching students and postdocs how to operate the beamline, and how to adapt their experiments to make the measurements possible.

Known for supporting the APS user community, Keane has served as a member of and was elected chair of the APS Partner User Council. He has also served as appointed chair of the Beamtime Allocation Committee, which is responsible for allocating general user beamtime.

Keane received his doctorate in physics from Princeton University and his undergraduate degree in physics from Harvard University.  

About the Advanced Photon Source

The U. S. Department of Energy Office of Science’s Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory is one of the world’s most productive X-ray light source facilities. The APS provides high-brightness X-ray beams to a diverse community of researchers in materials science, chemistry, condensed matter physics, the life and environmental sciences, and applied research. These X-rays are ideally suited for explorations of materials and biological structures; elemental distribution; chemical, magnetic, electronic states; and a wide range of technologically important engineering systems from batteries to fuel injector sprays, all of which are the foundations of our nation’s economic, technological, and physical well-being. Each year, more than 5,000 researchers use the APS to produce over 2,000 publications detailing impactful discoveries, and solve more vital biological protein structures than users of any other X-ray light source research facility. APS scientists and engineers innovate technology that is at the heart of advancing accelerator and light-source operations. This includes the insertion devices that produce extreme-brightness X-rays prized by researchers, lenses that focus the X-rays down to a few nanometers, instrumentation that maximizes the way the X-rays interact with samples being studied, and software that gathers and manages the massive quantity of data resulting from discovery research at the APS.

This research used resources of the Advanced Photon Source, a U.S. DOE Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America’s scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://​ener​gy​.gov/​s​c​ience.