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Innovation Crossroads cohort 7

Seven entrepreneurs will embark on a two-year fellowship as the seventh cohort of Innovation Crossroads kicks off this month at ORNL. Representing a range of transformative energy technologies, Cohort 7 is a diverse class of innovators with promising new companies.

ORNL’s Fernanda Santos examines a soil sample at an NGEE Arctic field site in the Alaskan tundra in June 2022. Credit: Amy Breen, University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Wildfires are an ancient force shaping the environment, but they have grown in frequency, range and intensity in response to a changing climate. At ORNL, scientists are working on several fronts to better understand and predict these events and what they mean for the carbon cycle and biodiversity.

TIP graphic

Scientist-inventors from ORNL will present seven new technologies during the Technology Innovation Showcase on Friday, July 14, from 8 a.m.–4 p.m. at the Joint Institute for Computational Sciences on ORNL’s campus.

ORNL researchers have enabled standard raised pavement markers to transmit GPS information that helps autonomous driving features function better in remote areas or in bad weather. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Working with Western Michigan University and other partners, ORNL engineers are placing low-powered sensors in the reflective raised pavement markers that are already used to help drivers identify lanes. Microchips inside the markers transmit information to passing cars about the road shape to help autonomous driving features function even when vehicle cameras or remote laser sensing, called LiDAR, are unreliable because of fog, snow, glare or other obstructions.

ORNL researchers, from left, Yang Liu, Xiaohan Yang and Torik Islam, collaborated on the development of a new capability to insert multiple genes simultaneously for fast, efficient transformation of plants into better bioenergy feedstocks. Credit: Genevieve Martin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

In a discovery aimed at accelerating the development of process-advantaged crops for jet biofuels, scientists at ORNL developed a capability to insert multiple genes into plants in a single step.

Robert Wagner

SAE International has awarded ORNL Buildings and Transportation Science Division Director Robert Wagner with the SAE Medal of Honor for his dedication and support of the organization’s mission of advancing mobility solutions.

UKAEA will provide novel fusion materials to be irradiated in ORNL’s HFIR facility over the next four years. From left, Kathy McCarthy, Jeremy Busby, Mickey Wade, Prof Sir Ian Chapman (UKAEA CEO), Cynthia Jenks and Yutai Kato will represent this new partnership. Not pictured: Dr. Amanda Quadling, UKAEA’s Director of Materials Research Facility. Credit: Genevieve Martin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

ORNL has entered a strategic research partnership with the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, or UKAEA, to investigate how different types of materials behave under the influence of high-energy neutron sources. The $4 million project is part of UKAEA's roadmap program, which aims to produce electricity from fusion.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory entrance sign

Zheng Gai, a senior staff scientist at ORNL’s Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, has been selected as editor-in-chief of the Spin Crossover and Spintronics section of Magnetochemistry.

Anne Campbell

Anne Campbell, an R&D associate in ORNL’s Materials Science and Technology Division since 2016, has been selected as an associate editor of the Journal of Nuclear Materials.

State and Local Economic Development Award

A partnership of ORNL, the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, the Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee and TVA that aims to attract nuclear energy-related firms to Oak Ridge has been recognized with a state and local economic development award from the Federal Laboratory Consortium.