Feature Articles

With her Early Career Research Award, Stanford University associate professor Sigrid Elschot studied the effects of fast-moving, microgram-sized particles that collide with spacecraft. These particles vaporize, ionize, and produce a plasma that radiates electromagnetic energy.

Héctor García Martín, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), is working to expedite and refine the R&D landscape of synthetic biology by applying artificial intelligence and the mathematical tools he mastered during his training as a physicist. The ability to predict biological systems using trained algorithms, combined with automated laboratories, could transform the fields of medicine, chemical manufacturing, and energy.

Argonne’s Aurora supercomputer represents a leap forward in scientific research. Offering unprecedented speed and power, advanced hardware, and AI capabilities, Aurora ushers in a new era of supercomputing to revolutionize the way scientists conduct research and achieve breakthroughs.

Physicist David DeMille and chemist Mercouri Kanatzidis were elected to the National Academy of Sciences for their outstanding scientific achievements.

The Princeton Plasma Innovation Center (PPIC) will be the first new building at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in decades. It will provide much needed modern state-of-the-art adaptable laboratory and collaboration space. It is the “centerpiece” to a reinvigorated campus and heralds a new era for PPPL. DOE was honored to celebrate the groundbreaking of this new building with PPPL, Princeton Site Office, Congressional and Princeton University officials on May 9^th.

Matt and Brandon traveled to Ecuador's rainforests to map the Coca River with drones. The river is experiencing massive erosion and sedimentation problems after the San Rafael waterfall collapsed in 2020. Their work could help the country save a hydroelectric power plant that provides 30% of the country's electricity as well as roads and pipelines the area's people depend on for commerce and transportation.