Hua-Tay Lin
Hua-Tay Lin, a researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been selected to receive the 2013 Honor Medal of Aurel Stodola by the Slovak Academy of Sciences. Lin is being recognized for his research activities and significant contributions in sciences on high-temperature mechanical behavior of ceramics and composites.
Lin works in ORNL’s Materials Science and Technology Division.
The Majorana Demonstrator is being assembled and stored 4,850 feet beneath the earth’s surface in enriched copper to limit the amount of background interference from cosmic rays and radioactive isotopes. (Submitted image)
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory has begun delivery of germanium-76 detectors to an underground laboratory in South Dakota in a team research effort that might explain the puzzling imbalance between matter and antimatter generated by the Big Bang.
“It might explain why we’re here at all,” said David Radford, who oversees specific ORNL activities in the Majorana Demonstrator research effort. “It could help explain why the matter that we are made of exists.”
Radford, a researcher in ORNL’s Physics Division and an expert in germanium detectors, has been delivering germanium-76 to Sanford Underground Research Laboratory in Lead, S.D., for the project. After navigating a Valentine’s Day blizzard on the first two-day drive from Oak Ridge, Radford made a second delivery in March. [Read more…]
Teachers in more than a dozen East Tennessee schools have won 25 “mini-grants” in an education program meant to recognize and support teaching excellence, and help teachers with specific projects or curricula.
The grants focus primarily on projects meant to help students learn about science, technology, engineering, and math, a press release said. UCOR, a federal cleanup contractor in Oak Ridge, announced the grant winners Wednesday.
The winners and their proposed projects and schools are: [Read more…]
The Friends of Oak Ridge National Laboratory will hold its monthly luncheon lecture meeting on Tuesday.
The meeting will feature speaker Lonnie J. Love, who will discuss the development of 3-D printing and other advanced manufacturing applications at ORNL, a press release said. [Read more…]
Pictured from top left, clockwise, are Valentino Cooper, Gaute Hagen, Matthias Schindler, and Jason Hayward. They are 2013 awardees in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Early Career Research Program. (Submitted photo)
Materials science and physics research led by early career Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists received a boost this week from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science Early Career Research Program.
The program, now in its fourth year, is designed to bolster the nation’s scientific workforce by providing support to exceptional researchers during crucial early career years when many scientists do their most formative work. This year’s 61 awardees were selected from a pool of 770 university- and national laboratory-based applicants.
“This highly competitive program is a well-deserved recognition for early-career scientists who are launching their own research programs,” ORNL Director Thom Mason said. “We are delighted that four of this year’s awards are going to researchers associated with ORNL.” [Read more…]
Sudarsanam Suresh Babu
Sudarsanam Suresh Babu, an authority in the production, design, and performance of transforming materials into parts, has been named the 11th University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge National Laboratory Governor’s Chair.
Babu will serve as Governor’s Chair for Advanced Manufacturing. He begins on July 1.
Babu, a professor in the Welding Engineering Program in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at The Ohio State University, directed a National Science Foundation Industry and University Cooperative Research center focused on materials joining for energy applications. [Read more…]
By Katie Elyce Freeman
U.S. economic losses from extreme weather could at least double by 2050, according to an Oak Ridge National Laboratory analysis published this month in the online edition of the journal Global Environmental Change.
“A side effect of America’s growth has been the tendency to put more people, infrastructure and assets in harm’s way, and when a storm comes through, that increased exposure drives up economic losses,” said author Benjamin Preston, deputy director of ORNL’s Climate Change Science Institute, who studied historical data from more than 3,000 U.S. counties and used predictive modeling in the assessment. Preston works in impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability science, a field devoted to analyzing the effects of climate change on people, governments and industries. [Read more…]
Meredith Graves, a senior at Hardin Valley Academy and winner of the 2013 UT-Battelle Scholarship, is pictured above with Thom Mason, Oak Ridge National Laboratory director. (Submitted photo)
Meredith Graves, a senior at Hardin Valley Academy, is the recipient of the 2013 UT-Battelle Scholarship to the University of Tennessee.
The four-year, $20,000 scholarship, presented annually to a graduating senior with a parent who works at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is awarded annually to an outstanding student who plans to study science, engineering, or mathematics at the University of Tennessee.
Graves, daughter of Van and René Graves of Knoxville, has already been accepted into the University of Tennessee’s Bachelor of Architecture program, where she hopes to apply her interest in STEM-related fields to the design of energy efficient and environmentally friendly structures. [Read more…]
Mark Whitney
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, or EM, is holding a public meeting to discuss the program’s fiscal year 2015 budget and cleanup priorities. The workshop, featuring Oak Ridge’s senior EM leadership, is scheduled from 4-6 p.m. April 23 at Pollard Auditorium.
“As taxpayer stewards, I think these public meetings are a responsible practice that increase transparency and explain our decision process,” said Mark Whitney, Oak Ridge’s Environmental Management manager. “These meetings also provide a forum for residents and stakeholders to voice their opinions, suggestions, and concerns about our vision.” [Read more…]
Xiaoguang Zhang and Eliot Specht have been named American Physical Society fellows. (Submitted photo)
Two researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory have been elected to fellowship in the American Physical Society.
Xiaoguang Zhang and Eliot Specht were named APS fellows in recognition of their outstanding contributions to physics.
APS fellowship is limited to no more than 0.5 percent per year of the society’s more than 50,000 members. [Read more…]
Once they’ve finished powering electric vehicles for hundreds of thousands of miles, it may not be the end of the road for automotive batteries, which researchers believe can provide continued benefits for consumers, automakers, and the environment.
Five used Chevrolet Volt batteries are at the heart of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s effort to determine the feasibility of a community energy storage system that would put electricity onto the grid. During the next year, researchers from ORNL, General Motors, and the ABB Group will conduct studies and compile data using a first-of-its-kind test platform officially commissioned Tuesday. [Read more…]
Retired Oak Ridge National Laboratory researcher and UT-Battelle Corporate Fellow Richard Haire has received the 2013 Glenn T. Seaborg Award by the American Chemical Society. The Seaborg Award is one of the top recognitions in the field of nuclear chemistry.
Known for his forefront, fundamental studies of the actinide family of elements, Haire, while at ORNL, concentrated on the transplutonium elements produced in the U.S. Department of Energy research reactor, the High Flux Isotope Reactor, or HFIR. He developed novel experimental techniques and emphasized the use of systematic comparisons, which focused on the role of electron configurations in the chemistry and physics of these elements. [Read more…]
