I am very pleased to offer my thanks and congratulations to both Jim Kerby and Elmie Peoples-Evans, who have accepted the top two positions in the APS Upgrade Project (APS-U) leadership team. Jim will continue on as APS-U Project Director and Elmie as APS-U Project Manager, making permanent the roles they have had on an interim basis since December 2021.

Both Jim and Elmie are well-known and well-respected members of the APS-U team, and by stepping into these permanent roles they have ensured a continuity of leadership as the project moves forward. Both Jim and Elmie joined Argonne and the APS-U in 2012 and have helped to guide and shape the project ever since. Both have extensive experience managing large projects, and they have brought that experience to bear on the APS-U.

Jim and Elmie also work well as a team, as their decade-long partnership on this project can attest.

The APS Upgrade is at a critical juncture. We are less than a year away from the scheduled start of the year-long installation period, during which the APS will shut down and the new, state-of-the-art electron storage ring will be assembled, and new feature beamlines delivered. If the way they’ve handled the challenges behind us is any indication, Jim and Elmie have all the qualities they will need to face the challenges ahead.

Please join me in congratulating Jim and Elmie and in supporting their efforts to bring a world-leading fourth-generation hard X-ray synchrotron that will change the course of scientific discovery for decades to come.  

Laurent Chapon
Associate Laboratory Director for Photon Sciences
Director, Advanced Photon Source