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ORNL’s Melissa Allen-Dumas examines the ways global and regional climate models can shed light on local climate effects and inform equitable solutions. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

The world is full of “huge, gnarly problems,” as ORNL research scientist and musician Melissa Allen-Dumas puts it — no matter what line of work you’re in. That was certainly the case when she would wrestle with a tough piece of music.

Erdem Asa is leveraging his power electronics expertise to adapt ORNL’s wireless charging technology to unmanned aerial vehicles. Credit: Erdem Asa/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Having co-developed the power electronics behind ORNL’s compact, high-level wireless power technology for automobiles, Erdem Asa is looking to the skies to apply the same breakthrough to aviation.

Deeksha Rastogi uses high-performance computing to understand the human impacts of climate change. Credit: Carlos Jones, ORNL/U.S. Dept. of Energy

An international problem like climate change needs solutions that cross boundaries, both on maps and among disciplines. Oak Ridge National Laboratory computational scientist Deeksha Rastogi embodies that approach.

Hope Corsair. Credit: Carlos Jones, ORNL/U.S. Dept. of Energy

When Hope Corsair’s new colleagues at Oak Ridge National Laboratory ask her about her area of expertise, she tells them it’s “context.” Her goal as an energy economist is to make sure ORNL’s breakthroughs have the widest possible

Oscar Martinez loads a special form capsule into the leak tester for a helium leak test in the packaging facility of the National Transportation Research Center. Credit: Jason Richards/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

As program manager for the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Package Testing Program, Oscar Martinez enjoys finding and fixing technical issues.

Clarice Phelps

More than 70 years ago, United States Navy Captain Hyman Rickover learned the ins and outs of nuclear science and reactor technology at the Clinton Training School at what would eventually become the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Rickover applied his knowl...

Default image of ORNL entry sign

If you ask the staff and researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory how they were first referred to the lab, you will get an extremely varied list of responses. Some may have come here as student interns, some grew up in the area and knew the lab by ...

Sergei Kalinin, director of the Institute for Functional Imaging of Materials at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, convenes experts in microscopy and computing to gain scientific insights that will inform design of advanced materials for energy and informati

Sergei Kalinin of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory knows that seeing something is not the same as understanding it. As director of ORNL’s Institute for Functional Imaging of Materials, he convenes experts in microscopy and computing to gain scientific insigh...

Julie Smith

It may take a village to raise a child, according to the old proverb, but it takes an entire team of highly trained scientists and engineers to install and operate a state-of-the-art, exceptionally complex ion microprobe. Just ask Julie Smith, a nuclear security scientist at the Depa...

Composites scientist and engineer Vlastimil Kunc with the latest large-scale 3Dprinter at the MDF.

Vlastimil Kunc grew up in a family of scientists where his natural curiosity was encouraged—an experience that continues to drive his research today in polymer composite additive manufacturing at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “I’ve been interested in the science of composites si...