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…]
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researcher A.C. Buchanan III has been elected a fellow of the American Chemical Society.
Buchanan, a member of ORNL’s Chemical Sciences Division, was recognized for his contributions to the fundamental understanding of the thermochemical transformations of fossil and renewable fuels. [Read more…]
Ken Mossman
KNOXVILLE—President Barack Obama recently nominated University of Tennessee alumnus Kenneth L. Mossman to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
Now a professor of health physics at Arizona State University, Mossman is an expert in radiation health and safety. He received his master’s degree in 1970 and doctorate in 1973, both in radiation biology, from UT and is a member of the Dean’s Advisory Board for the College of Arts and Sciences. He established the Ken and Blair Mossman Professorship in Biomedicine, currently held by Associate Dean and Professor Cynthia Peterson.
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is a five-member executive branch agency with safety oversight of all U.S. nuclear weapons facilities. Its mission is to identify potential threats to public health and safety at the U.S. Department of Energy’s defense nuclear facilities and to make safety recommendations to the secretary of energy and to the president. Among other things, the DNFSB issues weekly reports on Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex. [Read more…]
Matt Feldman of Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been elected fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, or ASME.
He was elected for his outstanding engineering achievements, a press release said. AMSE fellows are peer-nominated and chosen by the ASME board of governors.
Feldman works in the Nuclear Security and Isotope Technology Division at ORNL.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers are learning more about the microbial processes
that convert elemental mercury into methylmercury. (Submitted image)
More forms of mercury can be converted to deadly methylmercury than previously thought, according to a study published Sunday in Nature Geoscience. The discovery provides scientists with another piece of the mercury puzzle, bringing them one step closer to understanding the challenges associated with mercury cleanup.
Earlier this year, a multidisciplinary team of researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory discovered two key genes that are essential for microbes to convert oxidized mercury to methylmercury, a neurotoxin that can penetrate skin and at high doses affect brain and muscle tissue, causing paralysis and brain damage.
The discovery of how methylmercury is formed answered a question that had stumped scientists for decades, and the findings published this week build on that breakthrough. [Read more…]
Michael L. Corradini
The 16th Annual Dick Smyser Community Lecture Series continues on Tuesday, Aug. 13, featuring Professor Michael L. Corradini, director of the Wisconsin Energy Institute and past president of the American Nuclear Society. He will discuss “The Need for Nuclear Power in the U.S.”
The event is sponsored by Friends of ORNL (Oak Ridge National Laboratory). It’s free of charge and will be held at the American Museum of Science and Energy at 300 S. Tulane Ave. in Oak Ridge. A reception for the speaker starts at 5:30 p.m. (snacks will be served) in the museum lobby, and his lecture starts at 6:30 p.m. This talk should be of interest to the general public. [Read more…]
Leo Sain, president and project manager for cleanup contractor UCOR, near the east wing of the mostly demolished K-25 Building, built to enrich uranium during World War II and also used during the Cold War.
It’s been two years since UCOR, the federal government’s cleanup contractor in Oak Ridge, started working in the Secret City.
UCOR president Leo Sain celebrated with an Aug. 1 letter to employees that thanked them but also issued a reminder and challenge. Read the letter here.
Sain said he is very proud of the workforce—he called the company’s performance spectacular—and said work has been done safely, under budget, and ahead of schedule.
“At the end of two years, we’re one of the safest sites in the U.S. Department of Energy complex,” Sain said. “The credit for that goes entirely to you, the workforce, for staying focused on your work through all the distractions and changing hazards that come with the tasks we perform.” [Read more…]
Leo Sain, president and project manager for cleanup contractor UCOR, near the east wing of the mostly demolished K-25 Building, which was built to enrich uranium during World War II.
Note: This is an edited copy of a letter that UCOR President Leo Sain sent to company employees on Aug. 1.
To All UCOR Employees:
As we begin our third year on the job here at East Tennessee Technology Park, I want to thank everyone for an outstanding two years.
I am so very proud of this workforce. Our performance has been truly spectacular in every way. K-25, one of our nation’s largest deactivation and decommissioning projects, is nearly on the ground, and we’ve begun pre-demolition work in K-27 significantly ahead of schedule. We’ve disposed of over 120,000 cubic yards of waste while safely traveling over 1.5 million miles. [Read more…]
This year’s public bus tours of the U.S. Department of Energy’s facilities in Oak Ridge end on Aug. 30. (Photo courtesy DOE/Lynn Freeny)
The public bus tours of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge facilities end Aug. 30. It’s the last day of the 2013 season.
The tours include stops at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Y-12 National Security Complex, and East Tennessee Technology Park, and they provide historical commentary on the transformation of the Oak Ridge Reservation during the past 65 years.
So far this season, 1,148 visitors from 43 states have participated in the summer tour, a press release said. [Read more…]
Robert Jubin
Robert Jubin of Oak Ridge National Laboratory has received the 2013 Robert E. Wilson Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, or AIChE.
The AIChE recognized Jubin’s contributions in the areas of nuclear fuel reprocessing and radioactive waste treatment, and his chemical engineering achievements in the nuclear industry.
Jubin works in ORNL’s Nuclear Security and Isotope Technology Division.
Mikhail Sokolov
Mikhail Sokolov of Oak Ridge National Laboratory has received the Award of Merit from the American Society for Testing and Materials International. The award includes the honorary title of fellow and is ASTM’s highest organizational recognition for individual offerings to standards activities.
Sokolov was honored for his contributions to successful symposia on nuclear technology and applications and for his work on transition range fracture toughness standards. [Read more…]
