Joseph Gordon Email and Phone Number

I am currently a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. I’m interested in understanding the local, collective, and emergent phenomena of many body systems. My focus is on maximizing our understanding of the probes we use, the methods we use to observe and process the results of our probes, and the framework within which we relate the processed results of these probes to our fundamental understanding of the system probed. Our ability to understand is fundamentally limited by our ability to ask questions and also by our ability to understand the answers to the (inherently biased) questions we asked. It is only through a comprehensive understanding of multiple and simultaneous measurement processes (and associated equipment/conceptual frameworks) and a comprehensive method of analyzing and combing these multiple data that we can truly probe our object of study.I’m currently pursuing this line of inquiry in two projects, one focused on novel analysis of multi-modal data and one focused on the development of a novel, multi-modal detector.Half of my time is spent on a DOE funded effort to measure the neutron inelastic scattering cross sections on a variety of nuclei using the GENESIS array at the 88-Inch Cyclotron at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. This work is a continuation of my PhD work, where I qualified GENESIS as the first experimental nuclear data platform which can perform simultaneous, and coincident, high-resolution gamma-ray and neutron spectrometry via the development of validated detector response functions and a novel analysis methodology based on those response functions and commonly used theoretical nuclear reaction models. The rest of my time is spent developing a novel fast-neutron spectrometer, funded through federal programs aiming to improve our ability to identify serious nuclear threats in emergency response situations. This detector is based on a relatively new material and our group is at the leading edge of functionalizing it for fast-neutron detection using cutting edge signal processing and analysis algorithms. While our primary goal is developing this detector for information-limited, time-constrained, and high-stakes situations, I am constantly thinking about how else to use this detector (e.g. for experimental nuclear data, experimental/industrial fusion reactor monitoring, lunar/asteroid missions).