Biography

Lee Bernstein is a Faculty Senior Scientist and the Nuclear Data Program Head at LBNL and a Professor at the UC-Berkeley Department of Nuclear Engineering. He leads the Bay Area Nuclear Data Program, whose mission is to meet the nuclear data needs of the applied and basic science and engineering community while training the next generation of nuclear scientists and engineers in the process. He has over 25 years of experience in experimental nuclear physics with a specialization in measuring low-energy nuclear properties and cross sections.

Lee has led domestic and international experimental campaigns on GB to TB data sets using high-resolution charged-particle, neutron and photon spectrometers. Prior to coming to Berkeley in 2016 he was a staff scientist and group leader at Lawrence Livermore National Lab where he helped lead the development of detectors to measure the properties of High Energy Density plasmas at the National Ignition Facility.

He is a fellow of the American Physical Society “For work developing novel methods of determining neutron-nucleus cross sections via high-resolution gamma-ray spectroscopy, the early development of surrogate ratio method, and the study of nuclear processes in high energy density plasmas at NIF". Lee teaches courses in nuclear physics and policy and has served as the principal academic advisor for 17 Ph.D. and M.S. students.