The Environmental Sciences Division at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory recently conferred the organization’s 2024 Distinguished Achievement Awards on November 11, honoring both scientists and support staff. The ESD awards, presented by Division Director Eric Pierce, have been conferred annually for more than 40 years, recognizing staff who have significantly advanced the division’s mission and culture.
The Stanley I. Auerbach Award for Excellence was presented to Benjamin Sulman in recognition of his excellence and creativity in the modeling of biogeochemistry and plant dynamics that advances predictive understanding of diverse ecosystems in response to global change.
The Auerbach Award, honoring ESD’s founding division director and a champion of modern ecological science, recognizes high-quality, creative scientific contributions in support of basic research, technology development, or analysis, as demonstrated by publication in refereed journals of high reputation or by significant impact through application of science to solve complex environmental problems.
The Post-Graduate Research Award was presented to Ryan Jacobson for his exceptional work in resource economics and systems modeling, significantly enhancing the understanding of U.S. and global biomass resource potential, and its role in renewal energy deployment.
The Post-Graduate Research Award recognizes a scientist who has made unique and important contributions to ESD research, technology development or analysis. This can include significant contributions as exemplified by publications, decision documents, databases, simulation tools or other forms of communication, innovation of thought and scientific impact.
ESD’s Research Support Award was conferred on Carol Sanderson for sustained excellence in supporting ORNL Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) data publication. Sanderson supported the transition of ORNL DAAC data to the cloud, a multi-year project.
The Research Support Award recognizes an exemplary attitude, teamwork and accomplishments, including sustained contributions for the past year, efforts exceeding normal job expectations, high-quality work, including accuracy, timeliness and creativity, professional skills, innovativeness, productivity, teamwork and cooperation, professional and personal growth, contributions to the development of others, and the difficulty of contributions.
ESD presented its Administrative Support Person of the Year Award to Alexis Clark for enabling the best science through exemplary capability, knowledge, positivity, and efficiency in navigating ORNL systems.
The Administrative Support Award honors staff who provide critical contributions to ESD science. The award focuses on outstanding performance over the past year or sustained contributions over several years.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for DOE’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.
