Oak Ridge Today

Two ORHS students win UT scholarships in statewide math contest

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KNOXVILLE—Two Oak Ridge High School students were among 10 from across the state who received $6,000 annual scholarships to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in this year’s UT-Pro2Serve Math Contest. More than 700 students from 51 schools all across Tennessee competed in the competition, held November 6 at UT.

The scholarship winners were:

  • Joseph Andress, Oak Ridge High, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
  • Christopher Dean, Cookeville High, Cookeville, Tennessee
  • Jason Fu, Farragut High, Knoxville, Tennessee
  • Gene Li, Ravenwood High, Brentwood, Tennessee
  • Remilia Li, Pope John Paul II High, Hendersonville, Tennessee
  • Ohm J. Patel, White Station High, Memphis, Tennessee
  • Daniel Tancredi, Memphis University School, Memphis, Tennessee
  • Barbara Xiong, University School of Nashville, Nashville, Tennessee
  • Albert Xue, Oak Ridge High, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
  • Chang Yu, Memphis University School, Memphis, Tennessee

[Read more…]

Woman dies after trying to save pets from house fire

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Ridge Lane Firefighters

Firefighters battle a blaze at a Ridge Lane home on Wednesday. A woman who tried to save her pets from the fire died overnight. (Photo by Tom Scott)

 

Note: This story was last updated at 1:50 p.m. Nov. 23.

The 65-year-old woman who was burned and seriously injured while trying to save three pets from a house fire on Wednesday afternoon died overnight at the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville, authorities said.

Martha Babb Bailey and Adra Denton of Oak Ridge had arrived at Bailey’s home at 131 Ridge Lane around 3 p.m. Wednesday after grocery shopping. When they opened the front door, the house, which is in Orchard Knob subdivision in Anderson County, burst into flames. Denton called 911 to report the fire, and Bailey ran into the burning home to try to rescue two dogs and a cat, Anderson County Sheriff Paul White said.

But Bailey’s clothes caught fire, and she collapsed in the living room, White said. Denton was unable to reach her and called 911 again to say her friend was trapped in the burning single-story home. [Read more…]

UT study: Percentage of uninsured in Tennessee at its lowest in a decade

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KNOXVILLE—The percentage of uninsured Tennesseans is at its lowest rate in a decade, according to a report released Monday by the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

The report shows that 7.2 percent of Tennessee’s 6.5 million residents are uninsured, a 25 percent decrease from last year. The report also shows that 2.4 percent of children in the state are without insurance, a 35 percent decrease from last year.

The findings are included in “The Impact of TennCare: A Survey of Recipients 2014,” prepared by UT’s Center for Business and Economic Research, or CBER. The report’s authors are Angela Thacker, CBER research associate, and LeAnn Luna, CBER associate professor.

The declines coincide with the establishment of the Health Insurance Marketplace, which was put into place in early 2014 through the Affordable Care Act. The act also has had an impact on the state’s Medicaid program, TennCare, which has experienced the third highest new enrollment in its 20-year history. [Read more…]

Lunch with League: Immigration, humanitarian crisis in East Tennessee

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Karla McKanders

Karla McKanders

An associate professor in the University of Tennessee College of Law will discuss the migration surge of vulnerable immigrants to East Tennessee during a lunchtime meeting Tuesday, a press release said.

Karla McKanders will be the guest speaker at Lunch with the League on Tuesday, November 4. The program will be held at noon in the Social Hall of the Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church’s new location at 809 Oak Ridge Turnpike.

The press release said vulnerable immigrants are those who have migrated to the United States and are not afforded full protections under national and state laws. [Read more…]

Los Alamos National Lab director to give talk at UT on Oct. 1

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Charles McMillan

Charles McMillan

Charles F. McMillan, nuclear physicist and director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, will give the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy’s annual Distinguished Global Security Lecture on October 1 at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

McMillan will speak on “The Timeline of Technology” at 5:30 p.m. in the Toyota Auditorium at the Baker Center, 1640 Cumberland Avenue. The event is free and open to the public.

McMillan’s lecture will look at how innovations from the previous century are being used to solve today’s national and global security, energy, and environmental issues. Then he’ll pose a question to policy makers: “Are we prepared for the policy needed in the 22nd century with the scientific and technical expertise we have today?” [Read more…]

UT engineering students help ORNL, Local Motors print drivable 3D car

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3D Car

John Rogers, co-founder and CEO of Local Motors, left, and Douglas Woods, president of the Association for Manufacturing Technology, drive away from the International Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago over the weekend in a car printed with the help of UT students. (Photo courtesy UT)

 

KNOXVILLE—The only “car” that most people associate with printers is a “car-tridge” of ink, but that may soon change thanks in part to several students at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

UT, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Local Motors, Cincinnati Incorporated, and Oak Ridge Associated Universities teamed up to print a working, drivable car over the weekend at the International Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago.

The Strati 3D, officially produced by Local Motors, which has an office on Market Square in Knoxville, highlighted the show and placed what sounds like a product of science fiction firmly in the realm of reality.

“This brand-new process disrupts the manufacturing status quo,” said John B. Rogers Jr., chief executive officer of Local Motors. “It changes the consumer experience and proves that a car can be born in an entirely different way.” [Read more…]

Gov. Haslam, Bredesen to discuss Amendment 2 at UT on Wednesday

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Governor Bill Haslam

Bill Haslam

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam and former Governor Phil Bredesen will discuss a constitutional amendment that could affect the judicial system during a Wednesday celebration of Constitution Day at the University of Tennessee.

Amendment 2 to the Tennessee Constitution will be on the ballot in November. It proposes new checks and balances to the governor’s appointment of Supreme Court and intermediate appellate court judges. It also protects the rights of Tennesseans to vote to retain or replace those judges in retention elections, UT said in a press release.

Haslam and Bredesen will discuss the amendment at 2 p.m. Wednesday in the Toyota Auditorium of the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy. The discussion will be moderated by Doug Blaze, dean of UT’s College of Law.

It’s part of the Baker Center’s celebration of Constitution Day on Wednesday. Free and open to the public, the day’s events will also include: [Read more…]

UT’s Medal of Honor involvement very special for grad student and her dad

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Peter and Laura Lemon at Medal of Honor Convention

Medal of Honor recipient Peter Lemon, on the right, sits next to his daughter, Laura Lemon, a University of Tennessee doctoral student. They are surrounded by UT public relations students, some of whom are in Laura Lemon’s class. (Photos courtesy UT)

 

KNOXVILLE—Graduate teaching associate Laura Lemon found herself in an interesting spot at last week’s Medal of Honor Town Hall at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

On one side of her sat her public relations students, eagerly taking notes to write a press release about the event. On the other side sat her father, Medal of Honor recipient Peter Lemon.

A doctoral student, Laura Lemon said her involvement with UT’s Medal of Honor Project began last year when she went to Assistant Professor Nick Geidner’s office for help in one of his classes that she was taking.

Geidner directs the Medal of Honor Project, which is an award-winning service-learning collaboration between UT’s School of Journalism and Electronic Media and the 2014 Medal of Honor Convention, held last week in Knoxville. (It included a Town Hall Forum in Oak Ridge on Friday.) Through the project, students produced written, audio, and video pieces related to the convention. Although the convention is over, the project will continue sharing stories about Medal of Honor recipients and become a model for other universities that want to partner with future conventions. [Read more…]

DOE program funds alloy research led by UT; ORNL collaborates

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Haixuan Xu

Haixuan Xu

KNOXVILLE—An international research team led by an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville has received a grant to help with work involving a key component of nuclear reactors.

The U.S. Department of Energy grant is worth $800,000 over three years, and it has been awarded to UT Assistant Professor Haixuan Xu. It’s part of the Nuclear Energy University Programs funding and will be used to work on a pair of particular steel alloys, a press release said.

“Getting support on this will allow us to investigate and understand the defect evolution in these materials,” said Xu, of the UT Department of Materials Science and Engineering. “What we hope to gain is fundamental insight into the effects of radiation on the alloys so that we can better predict and detect how they will break down over time and adjust the materials accordingly.”

The alloys in question would be used in sodium-cooled reactors. Xu’s research is important because little is known about how the materials stand up to high levels of radiation over time. [Read more…]

ASM International elects ORNL researchers Paranthaman, Pint fellows

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Parans Paranthaman and Bruce Pint

From left are Parans Paranthaman and Bruce Pint. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

The professional society ASM International has elected two researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to the rank of fellow. A former ORNL researcher was also elected.

The materials engineering professional society cited Mariappan Parans Paranthaman “for the development of novel epitaxial buffer layers on textured templates, enabling high critical current density superconductor films, and for developing mesoporous architectures destined for high performance energy storage applications.”

Paranthaman, a distinguished researcher in the lab’s Chemical Sciences Division, has a joint faculty appointment with the University of Tennessee’s Bredesen Center in Knoxville as a professor. He is also a distinguished UT-Battelle inventor who has authored or co-authored more than 350 publications and has been awarded 28 U.S. patents. His awards include four R&D 100 Awards and three national and two regional Federal Laboratory Consortium awards for developing high performance second-generation superconducting wires for electric-power applications.

Bruce Pint, a researcher in the Materials Science and Technology Division, was cited for “groundbreaking contributions to the fundamental knowledge of high temperature oxidation mechanisms in alloys and coatings, and for contributions to heat resistant alloy design and development through the incorporation of minor elements to control and improve high temperature stability and overall oxidation resistance.” [Read more…]

UT among best, most interesting schools; ORNL collaboration cited

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Oak Ridge National Laboratory Sign

The University of Tennessee in Knoxville has been rated one of the “best and most interesting” schools in the 2015 edition of the “Fiske Guide to Colleges,” and UT’s collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory was recognized.

KNOXVILLE—The University of Tennessee in Knoxville has been rated one of the “best and most interesting” schools in the 2015 edition of the “Fiske Guide to Colleges,” which reviews higher education institutions in the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain.

UT is one of more than 300 universities to be included in the guide, which advises prospective students about academic quality, campus setting, financial aid, housing, and extracurricular activities. The publication was released this summer.

UT is recognized for its collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which “bolsters science and technology offerings, and involves more than 400 students and faculty in majors as diverse as English and physics.” The guide also praises the university’s strong programs in communications, psychology, business, architecture, accounting, and engineering. [Read more…]

Solar House opens July 10 at Children’s Museum

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Living Light House Ribbon-cutting

Chelsea, left, and Craig Myles walk to the Solar House with Carroll Welch, Children’s Museum deputy director, center, after a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new addition at the Children’s Museum. (Submitted photos)

The Living Light Solar House, an ambassador for good design and energy efficiency while at the University of Tennessee, will open to the public on July 10 at the Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge.

The Children’s Museum will host an open house from 7-9 p.m. Thursday, inviting visitors to tour the solar-powered house and the museum. Admission will be free that evening, as the museum shows the community its newest exhibit, the house built by University of Tennessee students.

UT donated the solar house to the Children’s Museum, where it arrived May 17. The new exhibit invites children and families to experience sustainability in an energy-efficient house recognized for its architectural design.

“Young people who see the Living Light house talk about wanting a place of their own like that someday,” said Carroll Welch, Children’s Museum deputy director. “The house is very inspiring for children, and it will offer many great learning opportunities.” [Read more…]