Oak Ridge Today

ORNL’s top 10 tech transfer successes topic of FORNL talk

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Mike Paulus

 

Mike Paulus, director of technology transfer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will talk about ORNL’s top 10 technology commercialization successes during a talk next week.

The talk is scheduled for noon Tuesday, November 9, to Friends of ORNL.

The virtual lecture is open to the public. To watch it online, click on the talk title on the homepage of the www.fornl.org website and click on the Zoom link at the top of the page describing the lecture. Here is Paulus’s summary of what he will talk about.

“From high-temperature alloys to biomaterials to solid-state batteries, ORNL innovations have made a difference in the marketplace,” Paulus said. “Since the 1980s, ORNL has transferred technologies to the private sector through its technology transfer office. My talk will review ORNL’s top 10 commercialization successes and look at a few recently licensed technologies with the potential for future success.” [Read more…]

UT-Battelle donation supports Roane State’s Middle College program

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Roane State Community College President Chris Whaley and Alan Icenhour, deputy director of operations for Oak Ridge National Laboratory, hold a replica of the $34,000 check that ORNL contractor UT-Battelle awarded the Roane State Foundation to help with college expenses for Roane State Middle College students. Also pictured is Roane State’s Interim Middle College Director Susan Pearson, Roane State Vice President for Student Learning Diane Ward, Roane State Foundation Executive Director Scott Niermann, Deborah Miller of Roane State’s Grants Development Office, Roane State Foundation Board Member Joy Goldberg, former ORNL Community Relations Manager Wade Creswell, Roane State Foundation Scholarship Specialist Pam Rudnitzki, and several RSCC Middle College students. (Photo submitted by Roane State)

By Bob Fowler, Roane State staff writer

The tradition of funding scholarships for Middle College students enrolled in Roane State Community College’s innovative program is going strong and continues to help participants reach long-term goals.

A $34,000 annual contribution from UT-Battelle helps cover tuition and other costs for students from Roane County’s five high schools to attend Middle College. This year, 57 Roane County students are enrolled in the curriculum.

UT-Battelle is the contractor that manages Oak Ridge National Laboratory, located in Roane County, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Middle College, now in its sixth year, is a two-year program for high-achieving high school students who want to get a head start on college.

High school juniors enrolled in Middle College take college courses at one of Roane State’s campuses in the mornings and return to their respective high schools in the afternoons. That way, they can graduate from high school at the same time they earn an associate degree from Roane State. Graduates can then transfer to other colleges and enroll as juniors.

[Read more…]

CORRE has membership meeting Nov. 8

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The Coalition of Oak Ridge Retired Employees will have its annual meeting on Monday, November 8. The meeting is scheduled for 2 p.m. online on Zoom.

CORRE is an organization of retirees that works to improve the welfare of all former employees and surviving spouses of the managing contractors of U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge facilities, a press release said.

The November 8 agenda includes reports about 2021 activities, election of board members and officers, and a report to the CORRE membership from President Dave Whitehead.

[Read more…]

CNS contributes $100,000 in community grants to 17 nonprofits

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A Consolidated Nuclear Security Community Investment grant funded a therapist for Willow Brook Elementary School in Oak Ridge.  (Submitted photo)

Submitted

Awards recommended by Y-12 employees in 2021 focused on at-risk youth, food insecurity, mental health, and aid to frontline workers

Consolidated Nuclear Security, in partnership with East Tennessee Foundation, recently awarded 17 grants totaling $100,000 to nonprofit organizations in 10 East Tennessee counties: Anderson, Blount, Campbell, Claiborne, Hamblen, Knox, Monroe, Roane, Scott, and Sevier.

The CNS Employee Investment Advisory Committee at Y-12 National Security Complex reviewed dozens of grant proposals this year, conducted staff interviews, and made site visits before recommending funding based on the committee’s four focus areas for the year: at-risk youth, food insecurity, mental health, and aid to frontline workers.

With the latest round of community investment grants, Consolidated Nuclear Security topped $880,000 of investment in the East Tennessee community during the last five years, a press release said.

[Read more…]

DOE: Feds must be fully vaccinated by Nov. 22

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The Joe L. Evins Federal Building is pictured above in Oak Ridge on Monday, Nov. 19, 2018. (File photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

The executive order issued by President Joe Biden in September requires federal employees to be fully vaccinated by November 22, the U.S. Department of Energy said. DOE said 84 percent of the department’s federal workforce was, at the time, fully vaccinated.

To comply with the November 22 deadline, DOE’s employees must complete their vaccinations by November 8. This would apply to the first Johnson & Johnson shot, a one-shot vaccine, or the second Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech shots, both two-shot vaccines. People aren’t considered fully vaccinated until two weeks after the final dose of a vaccine.

The U.S. Department of Energy notified its staff of the vaccine requirement on Tuesday last week.

“Protecting your health and safety is our top priority,” DOE told its staff. “To help ensure this, President Biden issued an executive order requiring all federal employees to be fully vaccinated by November 22, 2021. This applies to all federal employees regardless of remote, telework, or onsite reporting status, except in limited circumstances in which an employee may be exempt due to a legally required accommodation.”

[Read more…]

UCOR requiring COVID vaccinations

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UCOR is requiring its employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

The requirement applies to all of its nearly 2,000 employees, and it is a condition of employment, the company said Tuesday.

The vaccination requirement was announced by UCOR President and CEO Ken Rueter on August 26.

The company, an Amentum-led partnership with Jacobs, is the U.S. Department of Energy’s lead environmental cleanup contractor on the Oak Ridge Reservation, and it has an award-winning safety record, the company said. Rueter said that the decision to require the vaccine was in line with the company’s commitment to safety and its culture of caring.

[Read more…]

Roane State grad now at ORNL, researching how to thwart vehicular cyberattacks

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Sam Hollifield (Submitted photo)

By Bob Fowler

Roane State staff writer

This Roane State Community College graduate now works at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, researching what he told an interviewer is “the cat-and-mouse game that is modern cybersecurity.”

Specifically, Samuel Hollifield Jr. is looking into ways to defend vehicles’ computer systems from being hacked. He’s a cybersecurity hardware engineer. “Never in my life would I think I’d have a job defending automotive networks,” he said.

His education at Roane State played a huge role in his career path, Hollifield said. “It sounds like a cliché, but Roane State, it changed my life,” he said. “I’m a huge cheerleader.”

A Kentucky native, Hollifield initially attended a community college there but had to withdraw as his late father’s health declined. Employed in the coal-mining industry and afflicted with black lung disease, his father died at age 56.

[Read more…]

ORNL will require COVID-19 vaccinations

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The main entrance at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

Oak Ridge National Laboratory will require all staff members to have a current COVID-19 vaccination by October 15, and new employees will be required to provide proof that they have been vaccinated.

UT-Battelle LLC, which manages the laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy, decided to require vaccinations after the Food and Drug Administration approved the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, August 23.

The main entrance at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (Photo courtesy ORNL)


  Oak Ridge National Laboratory will require all staff members to have a current COVID-19 vaccination by October 15, and new employees will be required to provide proof that they have been vaccinated.

UT-Battelle LLC, which manages the laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy, decided to require vaccinations after the Food and Drug Administration approved the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, August 23.

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Lecture to discuss ORNL work for NASA’s space nuclear thermal propulsion program

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Thomas Harrison

Thomas Harrison, a group leader at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will give an overview this evening of the work that ORNL performs for NASA’s space nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) program, a press release said.

ORNL performs research on materials, fuels, instrumentation and control components and techniques, and systems analysis, all of which are vital to the successful deployment of NTP, the press release said. Harrison will also describe some of the challenges facing the technology and the methods that ORNL researchers are using to overcome them.

Harrison is currently the Advanced Nuclear System Safety and Licensing Group Leader at ORNL, the press release said. [Read more…]

Events to mark Hiroshima, Nagasaki anniversaries, call for nuclear abolition

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OREPA Peace Cranes at Y-12
Sharon O’Hara-Bruce of Lake Orion, Mich., ties a peace crane to a fence set up in front of the Y-12 National Security during a previous ceremony recalling the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945, near the end of World War II. (File photo)

Events planned in Oak Ridge and Knoxville on Friday and Saturday will commemorate the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, near the end of World War II, as organizers call for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

“There is a new energy for abolition,” said Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance. “Here and around the globe, actions and events will echo the demand of the international community in the Ban Treaty: nuclear weapons states give up their weapons.”

A press release from OREPA cited the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Under that treaty, the international community outlawed nuclear weapons, organizers said. The treaty was passed by 122 nations in June 2017 and entered into this past January, the press release said.

“There are only two possible endings to the story of nuclear weapons,” said Beatrice Fihn, director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, 2017 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. “Either we end nuclear weapons, or they will us. There is no other possible ending.”

[Read more…]

Battery research to be discussed Tuesday, Aug. 10

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John Bates, independent consultant for battery development and former researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will speak about solid-state lithium and lithium-ion batteries on Tuesday, Aug. 10, at 12 noon to Friends of ORNL. The lecture is open to the public. To view the virtual lecture, click on the talk title on the homepage of the www.fornl.org website and click on the Zoom link on the page describing the lecture.

“I will give a brief history of the development of intercalation cathode materials such as lithium cobalt oxide and a review of some of the research on thin-film batteries at ORNL and other organizations,” Bates said. “I will list a few of the perceived applications of these batteries for powering small devices. Successful commercialization of thin-film batteries encourages the view that the daunting problems facing large-scale solid-state batteries are solvable but perhaps not as soon as advertised.” [Read more…]

Jamie Stalker joins ORAU as physician and co-lead for NSSP

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Jamie Stalker, M.D., has joined ORAU as physician and co-principal investigator for the National Supplemental Screening Program. She will be located in ORAU’s Arvada, Colorado, office and work with John McInerney, M.D., who currently leads the program and is beginning his transition to retirement, a press release said.

“Dr. Stalker brings extensive experience in the Department of Energy occupational medicine arena, including a deep familiarity with the DOE Former Worker Programs as a former NSSP Advisory Committee member,” said Andy Page, ORAU President and chief executive officer. “We are excited to welcome her to our team and have her lead this outstanding group.”

ORAU has managed the program since its inception in 2005, and McInerney has led this program since 2006. It provides free medical screening, nationwide, for former energy workers who may have been exposed to hazardous substances at work. The screenings are designed to identify occupational diseases such as chronic respiratory illnesses, hearing loss, kidney or liver disease, and some forms of cancer. More than 22,000 enrollees have signed up for free health screening. [Read more…]