Rebecca Coles

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I am an Assistant Physicist (S1, RS-3) on the Detector Systems and Applications team at Brookhaven National Laboratory where I work on AI and machine learning software.

I did my PhD at Wayne State University, where I was advised by David Cinabro and funded by WSU, with additional funding from the Department of Energy Grant: Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR).

I've also worked at:

• National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLSII)
  Experimental Controls and Data Acquisition


• The Ohio State University
  Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI)
  Sloan Digital Sky Survey V (SDSS-V)


• Brookhaven National Laboratory
  Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST)


• Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BigBOSS)


• Fermilab
  Sloan Digital Sky Survey II (SDSSII)
  Supernova Acceleration Probe (SNAP)
  Tevatron Particle Accelerator

COBOL-tools is a collection of various COBOL utilities, including a warning system that sends SMS notifications to users when a system is down. It aims to provide useful tools and solutions in COBOL for various applications.

ADVANCE project to automate all the testing needed for the ENDF/BVII.1 We quickly realized that the quasi-automated suite could be completely automated and turned into a continuous integration (CI) system.

To be used with Synchrotron Radiation Workshop (SRW) and in the Sirepo web browser based GUI supporting definition of models created from simulation examples with sample models defined based on geometrical and statistical characteristics.

Retrieve and analyze data from CHX (NSLSII Hard X-ray BlueSky servers).

Software for the DESI Commissioning Instrument metrology program.

A partial record of all of the day to day image processing functions that I create and use. This project was later used in the development of the DESI Commissioning Instrument software.

A small body of python classes used to find the center of various circles present in an image. This project was later used in the development of the DESI Commissioning Instrument software.

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope is a wide-field survey reflecting telescope. The CCDs for the camera are packaged into a 3 x 3 Raft Sensor Assembly (RSA). This program simulates the absolute height of RSAs (Raft Sensor Assembly). Put simply, you would use this program to simulate the height of nine sensors sitting on top of their baseplate.

A program uses flats from CCDs to find the amount of dust, debris, or other contamination present on a sensor's surface (In Development).

What the Program Does:

Programs that I wrote to principal component analyze photometric light curves for u, g, r, i, z filter bands as well as redshift.

Rebecca Ann Coles, a graduate research assistant in Wayne State University’s Department of Physics, has been awarded the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) award. The award is for the proposed SCGSR research project, Quantum Efficiency Calibration for Large Synoptic Survey telescope CCD Sensors, to be conducted at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. The selection is in recognition of outstanding academic accomplishments and the merit of the SCGSR research proposal, and reflects Coles’ potential to advance the Ph.D. studies and make important contributions to the mission of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

Presented a talk titled "Development of Nuclear Forensics using Synchrotron Radiation-Based Analysis at the National Synchrotron Light Source-II" at the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management (INMM).

INMM and ESARDA Joint Annual Meeting at the Austria Center in Vienna. The program included plenary sessions, technical talks, poster presentations, exhibits, and in-person networking. The meeting is jointly held between INMM and ESARDA in Vienna.

Three talks at the Scholarly Partnership in Nuclear Security (SPINS) consortium to enhance the development of the next-generation technical workforce of underrepresented minority men and women.

• Basic Information That Engineers and Scientists Should Know About AI and ML
• Nuclear Forensics and Machine Learning (ML) at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II)
• My Career Path to Working in the Nonproliferation and National Security Department

The methods for automating the workflow for rapidly measuring and producing elemental maps of large-area samples using the Submicron Resolution X-ray Spectroscopy Beamline (SRX) at the National Synchrotron Light Source II, Brookhaven National Laboratory, through a novel combination of supervised and unsupervised machine learning algorithms.

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is under construction to measure the expansion history of the Universe using the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation technique. The spectra of 35 million galaxies and quasars over 14000 sq deg will be measured during the life of the experiment.

Our inability to solve recurring complex, human-centric problems in modern, socio-technical work environments are costing industries $Trillions of dollars, on average, each year. Because most organizations lack the critical thinking and complex problem solving skills needed to solve them. BlueDragon has re-designed how complex problems are solved, taking into account 21st century advancements and a better understanding of human-centric problems and the socio-technical environments that we work in.

Workshop on current and future synchrotron radiation-based capabilities in support of the nuclear forensics and nonproliferation mission.

The Department of Energy (DOE), capitalizing on the expertise of current national laboratory staff that previously hosted four successful cyber defense competitions to exercise interactive, scenario-based events, where teams engage in cybersecurity activities includes methods, practices, strategy, policy, and ethics.

Learn about best practices and strategies in personal and operational cybersecurity and the research being done to make our nation more secure.

Opportunity Analysisiologist training in PSW-lite. The Strategic Partnerships Program at Brookhaven recently hosted the fourth entrepreneurial workshop with funds awarded by DOE’s Office of Technology Transitions. The workshop was designed to equip researchers with screening tools necessary to identify product opportunities in their ongoing research.

Our project is researching methods to replace low throughput elemental and isotopic particle analysis with higher throughput alternative methods. Specifically, we aim to replace the need to isolate and individually manipulate particles by providing methods to obtain elemental and isotopic information while the particles remain embedded in collodion.

The Department of Energy (DOE), capitalizing on the expertise of current national laboratory staff that previously hosted four successful cyber defense competitions to exercise interactive, scenario-based events, where teams engage in cybersecurity activities includes methods, practices, strategy, policy, and ethics.

The Department of Energy (DOE), capitalizing on the expertise of current national laboratory staff that previously hosted four successful cyber defense competitions to exercise interactive, scenario-based events, where teams engage in cybersecurity activities includes methods, practices, strategy, policy, and ethics.

The Synchrotron Radiation Workshop software (SRW) generates simulations of coherent X-ray scattering and imaging experiments on user-defined samples. SRW supports simulations of both fully and partially coherent radiation propagation through X-ray and infrared beamlines at modern light source facilities. Detailed simulations of coherent X-ray scattering experiments are of paramount importance for modern storage-ring based SR sources.

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is under construction to measure the expansion history of the Universe using the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation technique. The spectra of 35 million galaxies and quasars over 14000 sq deg will be measured during the life of the experiment. A new prime focus corrector for the KPNO Mayall telescope will deliver light to 5000 fiber optic positioners.

We used use the commissioning instrument and metrology program to measure the absolute three axis Cartesian coordinates of the optical devices on the commissioning instrument which will be needed to ensure that we accurately map the DESI correctors optical distortions.

The DESI fibers feed ten broad-band spectrographs. We will describe the methods and results for the commissioning instrument metrology program.

STEM Prep Summer Institute is a four week enrichment program for students who are members of an under-represented minority (African ancestry, Hispanic/Latino, Native American, or Pacific Islander) in sciences. The program consists of four one-week modules covering topics in physics, biology, chemistry, scientific computing and environmental science.

The Workshop on Precision Astronomy with Fully Depleted CCDs will focus on topics of making precision astronomical measurements of flux (photometry), position (astrometry) and shapes (weak lensing) with thick, deep-depleted CCD detectors. Impact of sensor related effects on the Dark Energy science will be addressed through presentations and discussions.

Inspiring girls to be Inspiring all girls to be strong, smart, and bold; Girls Inc. came to Brookhaven to learn about our STEM projects.

Brookhaven Lab was well represented at "National Lab Science Day" on Capitol Hill April 20, as leaders, scientists, and support staff from across the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) complex showcased the national labs' exciting research, facilities, and capabilities for elected officials and staffers.

PubSci lets you chat with expert scientists over a drink. See the casual side of cutting-edge research and discovery happening every day at BNL. This series hops around Long Island covering different topics from the Big Bang to tomorrow’s technologies. Stay tuned for our next event coming to a neighborhood near you.

Abstract: We describe a system to measure the Quantum Efficiency in the wavelength range of 300nm to 1100nm of 40x40 mm n-channel CCD sensors for the construction of the 3.2 gigapixel LSST focal plane. The technique uses a series of instruments to create a very uniform flux of photons of controllable intensity in the wavelength range of interest across the face the sensor. This allows the absolute Quantum Efficiency to be measured with an accuracy in the 1% range. This system will be part of a production facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory for the basic component of the LSST camera.​

Abstract: The LBNL Microsystems Laboratory produces backside illuminated, high resistivity, p-channel, charge-coupled devices (CCDs). A system was developed to test the quantum efficiency (QE) of the CCDs; the percentage of electrons that are emitted from the CCD surface per amount of light that it's exposed to. The QE system was designed and constructed to test CCDs of a much smaller size then what is currently produced. To continue testing, I redesigned the QE apparatus to make room for the new, larger size, CCDs while still preserving measurement accuracy. I removed the photodiode that formally sat alongside the CCD in the Dewar, and installed it in a separate container. Instead of the CCD and the photodiode taking flux measurements simultaneously, the processes are now preformed separately. The error caused by the separation has remained less than 1.78%.