Souleymane Omar Diallo

Executive Director

Materials Characterization and Processing Laboratory

 

Johns Hopkins University

800 Wyman Park Drive
Baltimore, Maryland 21211
Office Phone: 410-516-2203

E-mail: souldia@gmail.com;

 

Education

Doctor of Philosophy, Physics, University of Delaware, 2007

Bachelor of Science, Physics, University Cadi-Ayyad, Morocco, 1999

Background and Qualifications

Dr Diallo is the incoming Executive Director of operations of the Johns Hopkins’s Material Characterization and Processing (MCP) Laboratory in Baltimore, MD, starting March 1st, 2025. Dr Diallo is an experimental condensed matter physicist by training. Prior to joining the JHU’s MCP, Dr Diallo served as a Program Director in the US National Science Foundation’s Division of Materials Research. Before that, he was a Senior Research Scientist at Battelle Memorial Institute, working on physics-based solutions, data analytics/statistical methods for aviation security related projects in support of the Transportation Security Agency (TSA). He worked in industry as well, most notably as a Technical Manager for X-ray manufacturer Smiths Detection to support the Transportation Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security S&T directorate. Dr. Diallo also spent several years as an Instrument Scientist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Spallation Neutron Source,  conducting material science focused research (neutron and X-ray) and supporting his users community.

Professional Experience

Johns Hopkins University

Executive Director (2025-present)

Lead and manage the Materials Characterization and Processing (MCP) Facility in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE), which is equipped with state-of- the-art analytical equipment including microscopy, spectroscopy and X-ray characterization, other materials processing platforms, and computer clusters to pave the way toward a future autonomous science, in alignment with the Materials Genome Initiative.

National Science Foundation

Program Director (2021-2025)

Support programmatic activities within the National Facilities and Instrumentation (NaFI) portfolio to include but not limited to Center for High Energy Neutron Scattering CHRNS), Center for High Energy X-ray Science (CHEXS @ CHESS), Major Research Infrastructure (MRI), Mid-Scale Infrastructure (Mid-Scale), National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI), National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL) etc.

Battelle Memorial Institute

Senior Research Scientist (2019-2021)

  • Lead data analyst within interdisciplinary team of scientists and engineers to support the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) X-ray imaging projects.

Smiths Detection

R&D Manager/Scientist (2016-2019)

  • Lead a team of scientists and engineers to support R&D imaging activities
  • Independent research investigator, mentoring junior researchers and summer interns

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Instrument Scientist (2012-2016)

  • Responsible for BASIS, a state-of-the-art neutron backscattering spectrometer
  • Independent investigator in soft condensed matter (confined fluids) and biophysics.
  • Mentored/trained guest/summer students and postdoctoral associates.
Professional Recognition and Affiliations

American Physical Society
Materials Research Society & African Materials Research Society

International Society of Photonics and Optics (SPIE)
National Society of Black Physicists

Selected Peer-Reviewed Journal Publications

S.O. Diallo, “Neutron scattering investigation of liquid–liquid transition in confined water”, MRS Advances 715–722 (2023)

  1. Dmowski, S.O. Diallo, K. Lokshin, G. Ehlers, G Ferré Porta, J. Boronat and T. Egami. “Observation of dynamic atom-atom correlation in liquid helium in real space”. Nature Comm. 8, 1 (2017)

S.O. Diallo, “Pore-size dependence and characteristics of water diffusion in slit-like micropores”. Phys. Rev. E 92, 022124 (2015)

  1. Carpenter, Y. Ding, A. Hurlock, D. Coccarelli, C. Gregory, S. O. Diallo, A. Ashok, M. E. Gehm, & J. A. Greenberg (2019). Motivations and methods for the analysis of multi-modality x-ray systems for explosives detection. ADIX Proceeding Paper 10999-7K. Brumbaugh, C. Royse, C. Gregory, K. Roe, J. A. Greenberg, & S. O. Diallo (2019). Material classification using convolution neural network (CNN) for x-ray based coded aperture diffraction system. ADIX Proceeding Paper 10999-10