Dawn Shaughnessy

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Dawn Shaughnessy
Shaughnessy in 2013
Born
Dawn Angela Shaughnessy
EducationEl Segundo High School
Alma materUniversity of California, Berkeley (BS, PhD)
Known forThe Chemistry of Superheavy Elements[2]
AwardsAmerican Chemical Society Fellow 2018
Scientific career
FieldsIsotope chemistry
Nuclear chemistry
InstitutionsLawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
ThesisElectron-capture delayed fission properties of neutron-deficient einsteinium nuclei (2000)
Doctoral advisorDarleane C. Hoffman[1]

Dawn Angela Shaughnessy is an American radiochemist and principal investigator of the heavy element group at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.[3] She was involved in the discovery of five superheavy elements with atomic numbers 114 to 118.[2]

Early life and education[edit]

Shaughnessy wanted to be a doctor as a child but became interested in science at middle school[4] and studied at El Segundo High School.[5] She earned her bachelor's in chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1993.[6] She joined Darleane C. Hoffman's group for her doctoral studies, and completed her PhD[1] at the UC Berkeley College of Chemistry in 2000.[7][8] Her thesis investigated the delayed fission of einsteinium.[1][6] She won an award recognising her strength in graduate instruction.[6]

Research[edit]

Shaughnessy joined the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 2000, working under Heino Nitsche.[6] As part of a United States Department of Energy effort to clean up nuclear materials in the environment, Shaughnessy studied how plutonium interacts with manganese-bearing minerals.[6] She joined the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2002.[4]

In 2012 her group received a $5,000 grant which they donated to the Livermore High School department of chemistry.[7] She was appointed group leader of the experimental nuclear and radiochemistry group in 2013.[9] She has been involved in campaigns to celebrate Women's History Month.[10] In 2014 she was an editor of the book The Chemistry of Superheavy Elements.[2]

While leading the heavy element group, Shaughnessy partnered with the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research; the team managed to identify five new superheavy elements.[11][12][13][4] The elements were confirmed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) in January 2016.[14][15] As they were discovered at the Livermore lab, she named element 116 Livermorium.[16] Her recent work has included nuclear forensics – being able to identify the traces of fissile material, products, and activation products after an explosion.[17][18] Her team are trying to automate sample preparation and detection, allowing them to speed up their isotope analysis.[18]

Awards and honors[edit]

Shaughnessy has won numerous awards and honors including:

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c Shaughnessy, Dawn Angela (2000). Electron-capture delayed fission properties of neutron-deficient einsteinium nuclei. berkeley.edu (PhD thesis). University of California, Berkeley. OCLC 892827700.
  2. ^ a b c Schädel, Matthias; Shaughnessy, Dawn, eds. (2016). The Chemistry of Superheavy Elements (2nd ed.). Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-37466-1. ISBN 9783662500170. S2CID 122675117.
  3. ^ Dawn Shaughnessy publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  4. ^ a b c "Dawn Shaughnessy, Most Creative People 2016". Fast Company. Retrieved 2018-07-26.
  5. ^ "Hall of Fame". elsegundohigh.org. Archived from the original on 2018-07-27. Retrieved 2018-07-26.
  6. ^ a b c d e "Superheavy Element Discovery and Chemistry at LLNL". Berkeley Nuclear Engineering. Archived from the original on 2018-07-27. Retrieved 2024-04-08.
  7. ^ a b "Meet the Woman Who Just Changed the Periodic Table As You Know It". Verily. Retrieved 2018-07-26.
  8. ^ "Dawn Shaughnessy". pls.llnl.gov. Retrieved 2024-04-08.
  9. ^ "Women @ Energy: Dawn Shaughnessy". energy.gov. Retrieved 2018-07-26.
  10. ^ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (2013-03-21), Meet Livermore Chemist Dawn Shaughnessy, retrieved 2018-07-26
  11. ^ Bing, Jeb. "Livermore Lab team discovers six new elements". Retrieved 2018-07-26.
  12. ^ Netburn, Deborah (2016-01-05). "It's official: Four super-heavy elements to be added to the periodic table". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2018-07-26.
  13. ^ "Lab scientists discover five new nuclei". Retrieved 2018-07-26.
  14. ^ Monks, Kieron. "Nuclear detective tracking the last elements". CNN. Retrieved 2018-07-26.
  15. ^ "Livermore Lab's discovery expands chemistry's periodic table". East Bay Times. 2016-01-04. Retrieved 2018-07-26.
  16. ^ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (2016-03-17), Behold Livermorium: A Quest for New Elements, retrieved 2018-07-26
  17. ^ "Providing data for nuclear detectives". Research & Development. 2015-03-03. Retrieved 2018-07-26.
  18. ^ a b c "Providing data for nuclear detectives". Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. 2015-03-03. Retrieved 2018-07-26.
  19. ^ "DOE recognizes Lab's outstanding mentors". Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. 2010-07-02. Retrieved 2018-07-26.
  20. ^ "LLNL team donates heavily to Livermore High". Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. 2011-05-18. Retrieved 2018-07-26.
  21. ^ "2012 - Inductees - Women's Hall Of Fame - Alameda County". acgov.org. Retrieved 2018-07-26.
  22. ^ "Shaughnessy inducted to Alameda County Women's Hall Of Fame". Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. 2012-03-28. Retrieved 2018-07-26.
  23. ^ "Researcher cracks top 10 in 'most creative' list". Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. 2016-05-17. Retrieved 2018-07-26.
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