I started using Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) facilities for multiple projects in my Geophysics PhD program at the University of California, Berkeley in 2015. I am currently in the process of returning my security badge to the lab. On the back of my badge there was an option to mail the badge back with postage promised for the return of the badge. When I returned my security badge to a National Nuclear Security Administration lab they mailed me an envelope to return the badge in. I did not get one from LBNL, a United States of America Department of Energy national lab stewarded by the Office of Science. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess I am not going to get reimbursed for the $4.20 it took me to mail my security badge USPS, yes that is allowed for security badges here. I mailed my badge 27 August 2021 and as of writing this review on 10 September 2021 the badge is still in transit... snail mail is not the fastest way to communicate with the lab.
Two research facilities I utilized in my research were the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) and the Advanced Light Source (ALS). I also ate at the cafeteria a few times and used the shuttle to get up and down the hill to/from campus and the parking lot on Hearst by Euclid.
Shuttles only ran on week days when I was using beamline 12.3.2 at the Advanced Light Source, so when I had beam time on the weekends I would park offsite and walk up and down the hill to the synchrotron. A great way to wake up on a Saturday or Sunday morning, hiking uphill to the lab. During the week I would typically ride the shuttle up and walk down the hill unless pressed for time, then I would take the shuttle both ways.
Something to keep in mind if coming on a weekend is to make sure your badge works at the laboratory main security gate. If it doesn't work, then you need to have the phone number of the beamline scientist or some other lab authority/supervisor plus your badge to gain access. Myself and other researchers I knew who used facilities at the lab had various badge problems over the years to a surprising amount. It just became part of using the lab procedure, at some point something will go wrong with one's badge, just work through the problem then. No amount of double checking prevented unrelated random problems from occurring. In the end, badge problems meant access problems and having that as a back-burner stressor was a bit of a detractor from the overall experience. read more