Dr. Jacklyn M. Gates is the group leader for the Heavy Element Nuclear and Radiochemistry Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She received her B.S. in chemistry from Westminster College in Pennsylvania followed by a Ph. D. in nuclear chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 2008. Afterwards, she moved to Germany as a postdoctoral fellow at the Technical University of Munich and the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research before returning to Berkeley.
Since beginning her graduate studies in 2004, Jackie has been studying the nuclear and chemical properties of the heaviest known elements. She is particularly interested in understanding the properties of superheavy elements that were added to the period table within just the last decade. These elements do not exist naturally on earth and must be made one atom-at-a-time at particle accelerators around the world. Some new elements are predicted to have different and interesting chemical and nuclear properties. In the last few years, Jackie has been working on a wide range of experiments in collaboration with multiple groups in the USA and abroad. These experiments have attempted to produce new elements, investigate the chemical behavior of Flerovium and determine the arrange of neutrons and protons in Moscovium’s nucleus. Recently, she and her group successfully determined the number of protons and neutrons in Moscovium’s nucleus for the first time.
Gates has been a coauthor on 63 papers on superheavy elements that were published in peer-reviewed journals and has been invited to lecture at universities and conferences on her work in superheavy elements over 30 times. She is also a recipient of a Department of Energy Early Career Award.
