Chelsea Chen, a polymer physicist at ORNL, is studying ion transport in solid electrolytes that could help electric vehicle battery charges last longer.
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.
Andrea Delgado is looking for elementary particles that seem so abstract, there appears to be no obvious short-term benefit to her research.
Chemist Jeff Foster is looking for ways to control sequencing in polymers that could result in designer molecules to benefit a variety of industries, including medicine and energy.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory physicist Elizabeth “Libby” Johnson (1921-1996), one of the world’s first nuclear reactor operators, standardized the field of criticality safety with peers from ORNL and Los Alamos 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.
Nuclear physicist Caroline Nesaraja of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory evaluates nuclear data vital to applied and basic sciences.
Marcel Demarteau is director of the Physics Division at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. For topics from nuclear structure to astrophysics, he shapes ORNL’s physics research agenda.
Rufus Ritchie came from Kentucky coal country, a region not known for producing physicists.