Jens Dilling has been named associate laboratory director for the Neutron Sciences Directorate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, effective April 1.

“ORNL pioneered neutron scattering in the 1940s, developing a new technique that enables scientists to explore and create new materials, batteries, and more,” ORNL Director Stephen Streiffer said. “Today, ORNL remains at the forefront of this science, and Jens will play a critical role in ensuring the nation’s leading neutron sources continue to deliver significant scientific impact for the United States and the world.”

Dilling has served as interim associate laboratory director for neutron sciences since August 1. He leads more than 700 employees at the High Flux Isotope Reactor and Spallation Neutron Source—two of the most powerful scientific research facilities in the world—as well as in projects focused on improving the lab’s neutron capabilities.

“Dilling demonstrated strong leadership in his interim role and will continue the (Neutron Sciences Directorate) team’s efforts to expand the scientific impact of the lab’s neutron sources while also growing the neutron user community across the United States,” ORNL said.

Neutron scattering uses beams of neutrons (parts of atoms that have no charge) that pass through samples. Detectors collect information about where (and possibly when) the neutrons are scattered to learn more about the materials. The Spallation Neutron Source uses a particle accelerator to send protons (positively charged parts of atoms) to collide with a heavy metal target to produce the neutrons in a process known as spallation. Meanwhile, at the High Flux Isotope Reactor, neutrons are produced by a nuclear reactor.

ORNL said neutron scattering is used in industries that include automotive, aerospace, steel, defense, industrial materials, energy storage, data storage, and biomedicine. Researchers use the process to find stronger glass for mobile devices, drugs that treat diseases more effectively, aircraft and rocket engines that are more reliable, vehicles with better gas mileage, better armor for the military, and batteries that are safer, charge faster, and last longer.

Dilling is an experimental nuclear physicist with “more than 20 years delivering breakthroughs in fundamental and applied nuclear physics,” the lab said. He started at ORNL in 2021, serving as director of Institutional Strategic Planning. In 2023, he took a joint faculty appointment as a research professor in the Department of Physics at Duke University, a core university of UT-Battelle LLC, the partnership that operates ORNL for the U.S. Department of Energy.

Before ORNL, Dilling worked for two decades at TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for accelerator sciences at the University of British Columbia. He started at TRIUMF in 2001 as a research scientist before moving into various leadership positions, concluding his tenure as the associate laboratory director for physical sciences, a press release said.

Dilling earned his undergraduate and doctoral degrees in physics from the University of Heidelberg in Germany. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, or APS, and received the APS Francis M. Pipkin Award, the Vogt Medal from the Canadian Association of Physicists, or CAP, and the Rutherford Memorial Medal from the Royal Society of Canada for “breakthrough discoveries in the field of experimental nuclear physics studying the fine details of the interactions of the atomic building blocks, the nucleons.” He is a professional member of APS, the German Physical Society, CAP, the Canadian Society for Mass Spectrometry, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

More information will be added as it becomes available.

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