What is your job at ALBA?

My job as an accelerators operator consists in supervising the correct operation of the different accelerators: LINAC, booster and storage ring. We have to check that all the parameters are correct and, if there is an incidence, we have to solve it within the shortest possible time.

During a normal day, we arrive at the control room (our office) to take over from the colleague, who explains whatever has happened during the last turn. Then, you are responsible for the next 8 hours, since we work 24/7.

This would be 50% of our work. The remaining 50% consists on giving support to the different groups inside the Accelerators Division. For example, we help the diagnostics group with calculations or the maintenance of the diagnostics subsystems. On the other hand, we also write procedures or look for updates related to the accelerators’ operation.

What do you enjoy the most about your job at ALBA?

I enjoy the fact of researching where a problem comes from. Collect all the data possible from the machine, correlate them, and look for the origin of the problem and how it is affecting.

What was your perception of ALBA before working for it?

In my last work at the University of Granada, my colleagues were users of the GSI, an accelerator facility in Germany. However, I did not know ALBA. When I first learned about this facility, I thought it would be a crazy challenge to work in a synchrotron. Nowadays I keep thinking the same: every day we face a problem we have to solve, which is exciting.

Do you collaborate with other research institutions?

Yes. Being in the diagnostics group, I collaborate with Eduard Fontserè’s Laboratory of Geophysical Studies (LEGEF, by its acronym in Catalan). They are dedicated to detecting seism, and we try to detect them with the instrumentation our machine already has.

Any differences with previous jobs?

My career is short still. I worked for a year at the University of Granada, where we were just seven people in the team, whereas here in ALBA we are more than 200 people on the staff. In the University, we were in the commissioning phase, expanding the laboratory. Here we have to maintain the machine working so the users have the maximum beam availability possible.

Which are your hobbies?

I enjoy trekking and listening to music with my record player and my vinyl records.