Within the Department of Energy’s National Transportation Research Center at ORNL’s Hardin Valley Campus, scientists investigate engines designed to help the U.S. pivot to a clean mobility future.
Steven Campbell can often be found deep among tall cases of power electronics, hunkered in his oversized blue lab coat, with 1500 volts of electricity flowing above his head. When interrupted in his laboratory at ORNL, Campbell will usually smile and duck his head.
Madhavi Martin brings a physicist’s tools and perspective to biological and environmental research at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, supporting advances in bioenergy, soil carbon storage and environmental monitoring, and even helping solve a murder mystery.
When reading the novel Jurassic Park as a teenager, Jerry Parks found the passages about gene sequencing and supercomputers fascinating, but never imagined he might someday pursue such futuristic-sounding science.
When Bill Partridge started working with industry partner Cummins in 1997, he was a postdoctoral researcher specializing in applied optical diagnostics and new to Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Chemical and environmental engineer Samarthya Bhagia is focused on achieving carbon neutrality and a circular economy by designing new plant-based materials for a range of applications from energy storage devices and sensors to environmentally friendly bioplastics.
What’s getting Jim Szybist fired up these days? It’s the opportunity to apply his years of alternative fuel combustion and thermodynamics research to the challenge of cleaning up the hard-to-decarbonize, heavy-duty mobility sector — from airplanes to locomotives to ships and massive farm combines.
Spanning no less than three disciplines, Marie Kurz’s title — hydrogeochemist — already gives you a sense of the collaborative, interdisciplinary nature of her research at ORNL.
Burak Ozpineci started out at ORNL working on a novel project: introducing silicon carbide into power electronics for more efficient electric vehicles. Twenty years later, the car he drives contains those same components.
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.