XFEL: Dr. Andrea Eschenlohr is the new chair of the European XFEL User Organization

Dr. Andrea Eschenlohr from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, is the new chairwoman of the European XFEL User Organization Executive Committee. The former vice chair took over from Dr. Allen Orville of the Diamond Lightsource, Oxford, UK, as scheduled after his two-year term ended. Orville had been the chairman of the Executive Committee since the User Organization was founded in 2019. Dr. Robert Grisenti of the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt, Germany, will be the new vice chairman."Together with the management and staff, we want to contribute to outstanding research at the European XFEL," says Andrea Eschenlohr. "In addition, we would like to attract new users to European XFEL. An important step in this direction was the Young Scientist Award. This award, which honours young researchers for outstanding research with X-ray lasers, was given to the first recipient in January. In the coming years, we would also like to work more closely with the user organizations of comparable international research institutions such as X-ray laser facilities, synchrotron radiation sources and laser research laboratories in order to join forces and better exploit the great potential of these facilities."

European XFEL Managing Director Prof. Robert Feidenhans'l said, "I am looking forward to working with Andrea Eschenlohr and Robert Grisenti. In the two years since its foundation, the European XFEL User Organization has given us valuable advice on how to improve our services and successfully develop our research facility. In addition to workshops and conferences, the user organization has proven to be an important platform to communicate with our users, to further extend the boundaries of knowledge through combined efforts, and to find ways to address future research questions."

The European XFEL User Organization is an independent association of scientists from all over the world who use the European XFEL. It aims to provide an organized framework for discussion between users and the European XFEL Management Board. The goal is to improve conditions for users and to help expand the user community. In the Executive Committee, researchers are represented by two representatives of the user communities of each of the currently six European XFEL experiment stations.