Oak Ridge Today

President appoints ORNL researcher to National Science Board

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Image courtesy Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Note: This story was updated at 2 p.m. Jan. 22.

President Joe Biden will appoint Merlin Theodore of Oak Ridge National Laboratory to the National Science Board, the White House said in an announcement last week.

Theodore is the first full-time researcher from a national laboratory to serve on the National Science Board, the governing board for the National Science Foundation, according to ORNL.

“Merlin’s appointment to the National Science Board is indicative of her accomplishments as a researcher, her contributions to national missions, and her advocacy for women and minorities in science,” said interim ORNL Director Jeff Smith.

Theodore is one of eight new board members. The National Science Board is made up of 25 members appointed by the president, and they serve six-year terms.

The National Science Board pursues the goals and function of the NSF, including the duty to “recommend and encourage the pursuit of national policies for the promotion of research and education in science and engineering,” according to the White House news release.

[Read more…]

ORAU receives National Science Foundation grant to study greenhouse gases in Arctic

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Praveena Krishnan

The National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs has awarded ORAU a collaborative research grant to study greenhouse gas emissions in the Arctic. The award is valued at $581,829.

The grant will be used to study local and regional emissions of isotopes of methane and carbon dioxide. Methane and carbon dioxide are two greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases can help raise the Earth’s temperature, changing the climate and causing other significant changes. (Isotopes are different forms of an element that have equal numbers of protons but different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei.)

In a press release, ORAU said carbon stored in permafrost is increasingly vulnerable to thaw and decomposition by microbes as northern latitudes such as the Arctic continue to warm.

“This decomposition has the potential to lead to large increases in methane and carbon dioxide emissions, both important greenhouse gases,” ORAU said. “Accurate and reliable forecasts of greenhouse gas emissions are critical for the improvement of global models that predict changes to temperature and sea level.”

[Read more…]

NSF grant of about $300,000 to support Roane State’s mechatronics program

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National Science Foundation Mechatronics Grant

Roane State mechatronics program director Gordon Williams, right, works with students at the college’s Clinton Higher Education and Workforce Training Facility. The mechatronics program prepares students for careers in advanced manufacturing. For more information, visit roanestate.edu/mechatronics or contact Williams at (865) 354-3000, ext. 4899, or [email protected]. (Photo by Roane State)

 

By Bob Fowler, Roane State staff writer

Roane State Community College has been awarded a three-year grant to make sure the community college’s mechatronics students have a well-rounded technical education to benefit themselves and their future employers.

The National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technological Education grant is for $299,793. It runs through June 30, 2022.

“A great team got this project off the ground and will keep it moving forward to benefit students,” said Shelley Esquivel, the community college’s grants specialist who submitted the proposal to NSF. [Read more…]

Applications being accepted for NSF Mathematical Sciences Internship Program

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Call for applications closes February 1, 2018

The Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) is accepting applications for the National Science Foundation (NSF) Mathematical Sciences Graduate Internship Program, a 10-week summer program for graduate students pursuing a doctoral degree in mathematics, statistics, or applied mathematics.

To qualify, applicants must be enrolled as a graduate student pursuing a doctoral degree in mathematics, statistics, or applied mathematics at an accredited U.S. college or university, and have a cumulative GPA of 3.30 or higher, a press release said. For a complete list of discipline areas, visit http://www.orise.orau.gov/nsf-msgi/. Students graduating with a doctoral degree prior to the expected internship start date are not eligible, the press release said.

Selected participants will receive a stipend of $1,200 per week for their participation in the internship and limited travel reimbursement. All applications must be submitted by February 1, 2018. [Read more…]

ORAU sponsors leading students, researchers at Heidelberg Laureate Forum

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Part of the ORAU campus in central Oak Ridge is pictured above on May 29, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

Part of the ORAU campus in central Oak Ridge is pictured above on May 29, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

ORAU and the National Science Foundation sponsored 21 top U.S. students and postdoctoral researchers in the fields of mathematics and computer science at the 2017 Heidelberg Laureate Forum in Heidelberg, Germany.

Similar to the Lindau Laureate Meetings for Physics, Chemistry, and Life Sciences, students and postdoctoral researchers attended the week-long Heidelberg Forum to network with Laureates in their STEM fields, as well as with international colleagues. (STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.)

Laureates who are invited to attend the meeting are recipients of the Abel Prize, the Fields Medal (including the Nevanlinna Prize for contributions in “Mathematical Aspects of Information Science”), the ACM A.M. Turing Award, and the ACM Prize in Computing. [Read more…]

National associations name Oak Ridge teacher as STEM Ambassador

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The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) announced that Elaine Vaughan, a math teacher at Oak Ridge High School in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was one of 10 math and science teacher leaders selected to serve as a 2017 STEM Teacher Ambassador.

The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) have announced that Elaine Vaughan, a math teacher at Oak Ridge High School, was one of 10 math and science teacher leaders selected to serve as a 2017 STEM Teacher Ambassador.

 

The National Science Teachers Association and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics have announced that Elaine Vaughan, a math teacher at Oak Ridge High School, is one of 10 math and science teacher leaders selected to serve as a 2017 STEM Teacher Ambassador.

STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

“Many of the policies and practices that shape K–12 STEM education today have resulted with little or no input from classroom teachers,” said David Evans, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association. “Throughout the year, the STEM Teacher Ambassadors will be taking on additional responsibilities and leadership positions, which will create new roles and a greater voice for teachers and for STEM education.”

Vaughan joined colleagues—all recipients of the Presidential Awardee for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching—for intensive training in communications, media, and policy. The training was created by the National Science Teachers Association and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and it is designed to expand the classroom teacher voice at the local, state, and national levels, a press release said. [Read more…]

White House recognizes Vaughan as outstanding ORHS math teacher

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Elaine Vaughan

Elaine Vaughan

 

Note: This story was last updated at 4:30 p.m.

Elaine Vaughan of Oak Ridge High School was recognized Monday as an outstanding math teacher by President Barack Obama.

Vaughan is one of only 213 mathematics and science teachers from across the country and U.S. territories who received the prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.

The awardees represent all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. territories, and the Department of Defense Education Activity schools. The educators will receive their awards at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., on September 8.

Vaughan was named in the Grades 7-12 Award Cohort.

Nicole Resmondo, a science teacher at Gresham Middle School in Knoxville, was named in the Grades K-6 Award Cohort.

A total of four teachers were recognized in Tennessee in the two cohorts.  [Read more…]

Some of nation’s most accomplished STEM teachers selected as Albert Einstein Educator Fellows

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Teachers representing 10 states, District of Columbia will apply classroom experience to congressional, federal executive branch offices

Thirteen accomplished K-12 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM, teachers from across the United States have been named 2016-2017 Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellows. The fellows will spend 11 months serving in a federal agency or U.S. congressional office in Washington, D.C., engaged in the national STEM education arena.

The Albert Einstein Distinguished Education Fellowship, or AEF, Program provides a unique opportunity for accomplished K-12 STEM educators to apply their extensive classroom knowledge and experience to their host offices to inform federal STEM education efforts.

The 2016-17 Einstein Fellows are as follows: [Read more…]

Roane State awarded grant to develop specialized welding courses

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The Roane State Community College campus in Oak Ridge is pictured above. (Photo by Roane State)

 

Roane State Community College received a $25,000 grant to develop classes in lightweight metal welding, a skill set needed by automotive manufacturers.

The grant from the Center for Advanced Automotive Technology will be used to develop four courses: aluminum welding, robotic welding, non-destructive testing, and metallurgy. Grant funds will pay for costs related to course development, supplies, and outreach materials.

Markus Pomper, dean of Roane State’s Mathematics and Sciences Division, said the course material will have applications in the automotive industry and for work at the Uranium Processing Facility under development in Oak Ridge.

“Automotive manufacturers are using light metals, such as aluminum, in their designs in order to increase their vehicles’ fuel efficiency,” Pomper said. “The lightweight metal welding courses will train the workforce for the lightweight auto manufacturing. In addition, we anticipate that the planned Uranium Processing Facility will require welders who can weld exotic metals and also test their work.” [Read more…]

U.S. joins world in new era of research at Large Hadron Collider

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Alice

At the Large Hadron Collider, scientists have begun to collect new data from experiments such as ALICE, which aims to reproduce conditions similar to those that existed immediately after the Big Bang. (Image credit: CERN)

 

New LHC data gives researchers from around the world their best chance yet to study the Higgs boson and search for dark matter and new particles.

On Wednesday, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European research facility, started recording data from the highest-energy particle collisions ever achieved on Earth. This new proton collision data, the first recorded since 2012, will enable an international collaboration of researchers that includes more than 1,700 U.S. physicists to study the Higgs boson, search for dark matter, and develop a more complete understanding of the laws of nature.

“Together with collaborators from around the world, scientists from roughly a hundred U.S. universities and laboratories are exploring a previously unreachable realm of nature,” said James Siegrist, the U.S. Department of Energy’s associate director of science for high-energy physics. “We are very excited to be part of the international community that is pushing the boundaries of our knowledge of the universe.”

The Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, reproduces conditions similar to those that existed immediately after the Big Bang. Oak Ridge National Laboratory led an equipment upgrade for LHCs experiment called ALICE (for A Large Ion Collider Experiment), which aims to learn more about the conditions of the early universe. [Read more…]

U.S. scientists celebrate the restart of the Large Hadron Collider, which involves ORNL

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Note: Oak Ridge National Laboratory has led an eight-year upgrade of the electromagnetic calorimeter used for LHC’s experiment called ALICE  (for A Large Ion Collider Experiment). This detector measures the energies of high-energy electrons and gamma rays to learn more about the conditions of the early universe. Thomas M. Cormier leads the LHC Heavy Ion Group in ORNL’s Physics Division.

On Sunday, April 5, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator began its second act. After two years of upgrades and repairs, proton beams once again circulated around the Large Hadron Collider, located at the CERN laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland.

With the collider back in action, the more than 1,700 U.S. scientists who work on LHC experiments are prepared to join thousands of their international colleagues to study the highest-energy particle collisions ever achieved in the laboratory.

These collisions—hundreds of millions of them every second—will lead scientists to new and unexplored realms of physics, and could yield extraordinary insights into the nature of the physical universe. [Read more…]

Science: Warming could cause great loss of Great Barrier Reef corals

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Coral Reef

The coverage of living corals on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef could decline to less than 10 percent if ocean warming continues, according to a new study. (Photo credit: Catlin Seaview Survey/Underwater Earth)

 

KNOXVILLE—Living corals covering Australia’s Great Barrier Reef could decline to less than 10 percent if ocean warming continues, according to a new study that explores the short- and long-term consequences of environmental changes to the reef.

The study was done by an international team of ecologists at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, or NIMBioS, at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. It is available pre-print online in the journal Ecology at http://bit.ly/1JmaLk0.

Environmental change has caused the loss of more than half the world’s reef-building corals. Coral cover, a measure of the percentage of the seafloor covered by living coral, is now just 10-20 percent worldwide. The Great Barrier Reef, once considered one of the more pristine global reef systems, has lost half its coral cover in the last 27 years. Overfishing, coastal pollution, and increased greenhouse gas emissions leading to increased temperatures and ocean acidification, as well as other human impacts, are all disrupting the delicate balance maintained in coral reef ecosystems. [Read more…]