Scientific interests & expertise

• Small-angle scattering (SAS) - both X-ray and neutron - for the purpose of materials science.
• Author of packages for analysis (Irena) and data reduction (Nika) of SAS data.
• USAXS/SAXS/WAXS instrument development. 
• Applied materials for advanced technologies. 

Something about me

My background. I come from Czech Republic, originally Czechoslovakia. I got my MS. degree from the oldest university in central Europe - from Charles University, Prague. I joined Institute of Plasma Physics where I developed interest in the thermal spraying and in the thermally sprayed deposits. After "velvet revolution", in 1991, I came to the USA to study for Ph.D at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, SUNY at Stony Brook, New York, USA. I have studied in the well known "Thermal Spray Laboratory" under the guidance of prof. Christopher C. Berndt and Herbert Herman. I defended my PhD thesis in 1994. Today this laboratory became NSF Center for Thermal Spray Research and we continue to collaborate.

After 1994 I spent two years as post-doc at Materials Characterization Group at Ceramic division of NIST, working with Gabrielle Long, Andrew J. Allen and many other outstanding scientists at NIST on the use of small angle neutron scattering (SANS) for characterization of thermally sprayed deposits. Next stop of my life were two years back at the Institute of Plasma Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague. I continued to broaden my field of interests here into various methods for materials characterization.

From 1999 I was stationed at the Advanced Photon Source, ANL, Chicago, IL - first employed by University of Maryland at College Park, MD, USA and then (as visiting professor) by the Purdue University, Purdue, IN. From July 2004 I am employee of the Argonne National Laboratory, member of X-Ray Sciecne Division (XSD),  Advanced Photon Source.

I am currently the responsible scientist for USAXS instrument.