Feature Articles

Argonne scientist Massimiliano Delferro and scientist emeritus Arthur Schultz elected as American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows for their pioneering work in conversion of single-use plastics and neutron diffraction science, respectively.

Accelerator scientists at Jefferson Lab have used an enhanced topographic analysis toolkit they developed to show that it not only successfully predicts particle accelerator component performance, but also points toward even better surface treatments not yet tested on a large scale. The results were recently published in Physical Review Accelerators and Beams.

Inspection technology developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory will help deliver plasma heating to the ITER international fusion facility.

The new institute, which honors the memory of the noted researcher in superconducting and clean energy, will advance research on a wide array of scientific challenges.

The University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute in February selected a circular bioeconomy project as one of its newest Convergent Research Initiatives for joint research. Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Erin Webb will co-lead the five-year Circular Bioeconomy Systems CRI with UT’s Niki Labbe. Webb is lead for the Bioresource Science and Engineering group and relationship manager for the Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office, or BETO, at ORNL. Webb discussed the CRI’s first steps, long-term goals, and how her experience as a first-generation, farm-family college student motivates her work. ­­­­­

Danny Andujar brings the technical skills, work drive and team mindset to fill a variety of roles at Argonne National Laboratory’s Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop Facility.

Today marks the startup of the 24^th run of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility for nuclear physics research at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. Physicists at RHIC’s two house-sized particle detectors, sPHENIX and STAR, are eagerly awaiting the first collisions in Run 24 of protons speeding in opposite directions around the accelerator’s twin 2.4-mile-circumference rings.

You may have flown a flight simulator in a computer game or at a science museum. Landing without crashing is always the hardest part. But that’s nothing compared to the challenge that engineers are facing to develop a flight simulation of the very large vehicles necessary for humans to explore the surface of Mars. The Red Planet poses innumerable challenges to astronauts, not the least of which is getting there. That’s where the Department of Energy Office of Science’s user facility supercomputers come in. Researchers at DOE’s Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) are working with NASA engineers and scientists to simulate the process of slowing down a huge spacecraft as it moves towards Mars’ surface.

The Neutron Scattering Society of America, or NSSA, recognized Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Ke An and Ken Herwig as fellows for their outstanding contributions to neutron scattering.