Beckman Alumnus von Allmen Looks Beyond Boundaries at JPL
Paul von Allmen
It probably helps to have broad horizons when you work in the space exploration business. Paul von Allmen is a former Beckman Institute postdoctoral researcher who always has looked beyond boundaries.
A chance meeting with current Beckman researcher Jean-Pierre Leburton several years ago led to von Allmen leaving Europe to come to the University of Illinois and Beckman to work with one of the Institute’s founding fathers, Karl Hess. Von Allmen leveraged his work here to land jobs in private industry, and then went on to head a computing research group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
After earning a Ph.D. in physics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, von Allmen went to work for IBM in Switzerland. It was there that he met Leburton, who was visiting the company’s facilities.
“I was looking for the next step,” von Allmen said. “He asked if I wanted to come to Illinois. I asked around about what the University was like, got good feedback, and decided to give it a try.
“For me it was an opportunity to expand my knowledge base and also a chance to meet a number of really first-rate scientists and engineers. This was the main thing I took from my stay at the University.”
After coming to Beckman in 1992, von Allmen collaborated with Hess on a number of projects and papers, including a seminal paper on developing first principals of an electronic structure calculation code.
“I had a fair amount of freedom with Karl in what was doing, which I really appreciated,” von Allmen said. “It allowed me to go in directions I found interesting. He was a very good discussion partner for all the projects we were conducting. That was a good time for studying new subjects and expanding my knowledge base.”
Von Allmen says the experience of working with Hess and others at Illinois was invaluable for his professional career.
“Developing first principals of an electronic structure calculation code was a big endeavor and it is knowledge that I am using now,” he said. “Also, not too long ago I hired a quantum chemist and, without the knowledge that I gained through the work in Illinois, it would have been difficult for me to interact with this person.”