Oak Ridge Today

Learn about the construction of Oak Ridge through Westcott photos

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Ed Westcott and Ray Smith

Ed Westcott, right, was the only official photographer in Oak Ridge during the Manhattan Project in World War II, a top-secret project to build the world’s first atomic bomb. Westcott is pictured above with D. Ray Smith, Y-12 National Security Complex historian and newspaper history columnist. (Photo courtesy D. Ray Smith)

 

A Tuesday program will focus on the construction of the city that is now Oak Ridge through Ed Westcott photographs.

The program is titled “The Building of the Atomic City—the Ed Wescott Photographs.” It will be presented by Emily Hunnicutt, Ed Westcott’s daughter, and Don Hunnicutt, Westcott’s son-in-law.

Westcott was the official photographer for the federal government in the city, which was once known as Clinton Engineer Works, during World War II. Oak Ridge was built as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project, a program to build the world’s first atomic bombs, before Germany could.

The Tuesday program is at noon at the University of Tennessee Resource Center at 1201 Oak Ridge Turnpike. It includes a lunch, and it’s sponsored by Friends of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, or FORNL. This meeting is open to the public. [Read more…]

ORNL project director to discuss world-leading computing at noon Tuesday

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Buddy Bland

Buddy Bland (Photo by ORNL)

Buddy Bland, project director of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will discuss world-leading computing and ORNL sciences during a lunchtime meeting Tuesday.

The meeting on Tuesday, September 8, is open to the public.

“Today, the Titan supercomputer at ORNL is one of the world’s fastest and most productive tools for science at every scale,” a press release said. “From the composition of nucleons from quarks, to nanomaterials, to chemistry and biology, to transportation, to fission and fusion reactors, to astrophysics, modeling, and simulation using high-performance computers has transformed the way we do science and engineering. This presentation will cover a brief history of computing at ORNL, where we are going in the future, and the impact that computing has on our local community, the nation, and the world.” [Read more…]

Friends of ORNL meeting will feature discussion of data-driven health innovation

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The Tuesday lunch meeting of Friends of ORNL will feature Gina Tourassi, director of Biomedical Sciences and Engineering Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. She will discuss data-driven health innovations at ORNL.

The August 11 meeting starts with lunch at 11:30 a.m., and the presentation begins at 12 p.m. It’s in the University of Tennessee Resource Center, the white-colored building at 1201 Oak Ridge Turnpike between Taco Bell and Applebee’s at the intersection of the Turnpike and Rutgers Avenue. Use the canopy entrance at the southwest (back) corner of the building.

This meeting is open to the public. [Read more…]

ORNL Climate Change Science Institute rep to discuss science, policy on Tuesday

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Benjamin L. Preston

Benjamin L. Preston

The deputy director of the Climate Change Science Institute at Oak Ridge National Laboratory will discuss climate change science and policy during a Tuesday lunch lecture. The meeting is open to the public.

Ben Preston is deputy director of ORNL’s Climate Change Science Institute. His talk is titled “The State of Climate Change Science and Policy: Local to Global.”

The Friends of ORNL meeting starts with socializing and coffee at 11 a.m., lunch begins at 11:30 a.m., and the lecture starts at noon. A question-and-answer session is scheduled at 12:45 p.m., and the meeting adjourns at 1 p.m. A catered lunch by the Soup Kitchen will be available for $8. [Read more…]

FORNL has third talk on international thermonuclear project on Tuesday

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Graeme Murdoch

Graeme Murdoch

Friends of Oak Ridge National Laboratory will have its third talk on the U.S. ITER project on Tuesday. ITER is the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, and it will be constructed at Cadarache, France, and is expected to be completed within 10 years.

The Friends of ORNL lecture starts at noon Tuesday at the University of Tennessee Resource Center. It will feature Graeme Murdoch, who will discuss U.S. ITER non-nuclear systems.

“The United States has joined with China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, and Russia to construct and operate ITER, a full-scale, 500 megawatt experimental fusion device,” a press release said. “U.S. Contributions to ITER include hardware (with supporting research and development and design), personnel (U.S. engineers and scientists) to the ITER site in Cadarache, and cash contributions to the ITER organization. US-supplied hardware includes magnets, blankets, diagnostics, tritium processing, ion cyclotron and electron cyclotron heating and current drive systems, pellet fueling, and more conventional systems such as cooling water and electrical power systems.”

ITER is a large-scale project that presents many engineering challenges, the press release said. [Read more…]

Chief engineer for U.S. ITER at ORNL to give project overview on Tuesday

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Brad Nelson

Brad Nelson

The chief engineer for the U.S. ITER Project at Oak Ridge National Laboratory will give a project overview on Tuesday.

Brad Nelson is the chief engineer for the U.S. International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor Project. His Tuesday talk will be the first in a series of three presentations on the U.S. ITER project to Friends of ORNL, with Hans Vogel speaking on April 8 and Graeme Murdoch speaking on May 13.

The New Yorker published a story on ITER in its March 3 edition titled “A Star in a Bottle” by Raffi Khatchadourian.

Nelson’s Tuesday presentation during a Friends of ORNL luncheon lecture starts at noon at the University of Tennessee Resource Center in Oak Ridge. [Read more…]

ORNL deputy director to discuss lab’s sustainability program Tuesday

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Melissa Voss Lapsa

Melissa Voss Lapsa

A deputy director at Oak Ridge National Laboratory will discuss the lab’s award-winning sustainability program during a Tuesday luncheon lecture.

The presentation by Melissa Voss Lapsa, deputy director of ORNL’s Building Technologies Research and Integration Center, starts at noon Tuesday at the University of Tennessee Resource Center on Oak Ridge Turnpike.

Lapsa has more than 18 years of experience conducting market research, policy analysis, and institutional and consumer behavior research aimed at deploying cost-effective energy-efficient technologies, a press release said. In addition, Lapsa leads the ORNL Sustainable Campus Initiative. The goal of that initiative is to integrate energy and resource efficiency, cutting-edge technologies, operational and business processes, and institutional behavior to achieve sustainability at work, home, and in the community, the release said. [Read more…]

FORNL lecture features presentation on finding unmarked graves

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Katie Corcoran

Katie Corcoran

A lecture in Oak Ridge today will feature a presentation on finding unmarked graves.

Katie Corcoran is pursuing a doctorate in anthropology at the University of Tennessee, and she is also a graduate intern in the Geographic Information Science and Technology Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Her lecture at a Friends of ORNL meeting is titled “The Remote Detection of Unmarked Graves.” The meeting starts at 11 a.m., and the lecture begins at noon at the University of Tennessee Resource Center at 1201 Oak Ridge Turnpike. It’s open to the public. [Read more…]

ORNL physicist to discuss sensors, detection technologies

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Bruce Warmack

Bruce Warmack

A physicist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory will discuss sensors and detection technologies, such as those used in smoke alarms, at a Friends of ORNL meeting on Tuesday.

The talk by Bruce Warmack of the ORNL Measurement Science and Systems Engineering Division is titled “Making machines sense our world.”

The meeting is open to the public, and it starts at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the University of Tennessee Resource Center at 1201 Oak Ridge Turnpike. [Read more…]

Lecture next week focuses on IAEA training program hosted at ORNL

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Michael Whitaker

Michael Whitaker

A lunchtime lecture next week will feature a discussion of a recent International Atomic Energy Agency training program that was hosted at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Michael Whitaker, group leader of the ORNL International Safeguards Group in the Nuclear Security and Isotope Technology Division, will lead the presentation.

The IAEA training program was for more than 40 nuclear safeguards professionals and regulatory officials representing more than 30 nations. They spent two weeks at ORNL to expand their knowledge for conducting their vital work around the world, a press release said. [Read more…]

Tuesday lecture features leader in high-performance computing at ORNL

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Jeff Nichols

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…]