Stuart Daw
C. Stuart Daw of Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been elected fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
He was selected by AIChE for his numerous outstanding contributions to the chemical engineering profession.
Daw, a UT-Battelle Corporate Fellow, works in the U.S. Department of Energy lab’s Energy and Transportation Science Division. He lives in Knoxville.
Microbes that live in rice paddies, northern peat bogs, and other previously unexpected environments are among the bacteria that can generate highly toxic methylmercury, researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center have learned.
This finding, published in Environmental Science and Technology, explains why deadly methylated mercury is produced in areas where the neurotoxin’s presence has puzzled researchers for decades. Methylmercury—the most dangerous form of mercury—damages the brain and immune system and is especially harmful to developing embryos. Certain bacteria transform inorganic mercury into toxic methylmercury. [Read more…]
Michael Voce
National Strategic Protective Services LLC, the security contractor for U.S. Department of Energy facilities in Oak Ridge, has a new general manager who will start Oct. 1.
Michael Voce will replace general manager Greg McDowell, whose resignation was announced in July.
NSPS, a joint venture of Triple Canopy Inc. and Securiguard Inc., provides protective force services to the East Tennessee Technology Park, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Joe L. Evins Federal Building. [Read more…]
Michael Whitaker
A lunchtime lecture next week will feature a discussion of a recent International Atomic Energy Agency training program that was hosted at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Michael Whitaker, group leader of the ORNL International Safeguards Group in the Nuclear Security and Isotope Technology Division, will lead the presentation.
The IAEA training program was for more than 40 nuclear safeguards professionals and regulatory officials representing more than 30 nations. They spent two weeks at ORNL to expand their knowledge for conducting their vital work around the world, a press release said.
[Read more…]
This schematic depicts a new ORNL-developed material that can easily absorb or shed oxygen atoms. (Photo courtesy ORNL)
Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a new oxygen “sponge” that can easily absorb or shed oxygen atoms at low temperatures. Materials with these novel characteristics would be useful in devices such as rechargeable batteries, sensors, gas converters, and fuel cells.
Materials containing atoms that can switch back and forth between multiple oxidation states are technologically important but very rare in nature, said ORNL’s Ho Nyung Lee, who led the international research team that published its findings in Nature Materials. [Read more…]
Steve Zinkle
KNOXVILLE—Steve Zinkle, an authority on the effect of radiation on materials in fission and fusion nuclear reactors, has been named the thirteenth University of Tennessee–Oak Ridge National Laboratory Governor’s Chair.
Zinkle will serve as Governor’s Chair for Nuclear Materials, based in the department of nuclear engineering at UT with a complementary appointment in materials science and engineering. He begins at UT on Oct. 1. [Read more…]
Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Neutron Sciences Directorate, or NScD, home organization for the Spallation Neutron Source and High Flux Isotope Reactor, has filled two high-level administrative positions with leaders in the neutron scattering field.
Rob McQueeney, recently with Iowa State University and Ames Laboratory, has been named NScD’s deputy associate laboratory director. Alan Tennant, currently with the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin in Germany, has been named chief scientist for the NScD. [Read more…]
Oak Ridge National Laboratory volunteers receive the Horizon Award from the Tennessee Labor Management Foundation. From left are Angela Gaylon, Dale McBee, Steve Jones, Mike Day, team captain Ann Weaver, and Jeff Reasor. (Submitted photo)
Team UT-Battelle’s all-volunteer project to build homes for Aid to Distressed Families of Appalachian Counties has earned the 2013 Horizon Award from the Tennessee Labor Management Foundation.
The award, which recognizes labor management partnerships that benefit the Tennessee community, will be presented to UT-Battelle and the Atomic Trades and Labor Council at the foundation’s summer conference in Nashville. UT-Battelle is the managing contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. [Read more…]
The ability to control nanoscale imperfections in superconducting wires results in materials with unparalleled and customized performance, according to a new study from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Applications for superconducting wires, which carry electricity without resistance when cooled to a critical temperature, include underground transmission cables, transformers, and large-scale motors and generators. But these applications require wires to operate under different temperature and magnetic field regimes. [Read more…]
This figure shows the spectroscopic measurement (current as a function of voltage) and this as a function of temperature. (Reproduced by permission of The Royal Society of Chemistry)
Better batteries, catalysts, electronic information storage and processing devices are among potential benefits of an unexpected discovery made by Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists using samples isolated from the atmosphere.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy lab learned that key surface properties of complex oxide films are unaffected by reduced levels of oxygen during fabrication—an unanticipated finding with possible implications for the design of functional complex oxides used in a variety of consumer products, said Zheng Gai, a member of DOE’s Center for Nanoscale Materials Sciences at ORNL.
The findings are detailed in a paper published in Nanoscale. [Read more…]
Jeff Nichols
A leader in high-performance computing at Oak Ridge National Laboratory will be the featured speaker at the monthly meeting of Friends of ORNL.
Jeff Nichols is associate laboratory director for ORNL’s Computing and Computational Sciences Directorate. Nichols leads the laboratory’s advanced high-performance computing in priority areas such as climate change, nuclear energy, fusion energy, nanotechnology, and biotechnology, a press release said. [Read more…]
From left, Dot Harris, director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Economic Impact and Diversity, and Michael Colbert, deputy director of DOE’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion, listen as Research Alliance in Math and Science student Darius Degraffenried presents his research. (Photo by ORNL’s Jason Richards)
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Dot Harris, director of the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity, visited Oak Ridge National Laboratory Thursday and Friday.
Harris spoke at the Research Alliance in Math and Science banquet Thursday evening, and she attended a RAMS poster session that preceded the dinner.
Her agenda also included visits to ORNL’s supercomputing facilities, Spallation Neutron Source, the Carbon Fiber Technology Facility, and the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility, as well as discussions on the lab’s education, outreach, partnerships, and small business programs. [Read more…]
