Santa Jansone-Popova, a senior R&D staff scientist in the Chemical Sciences Division of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been elected a foreign fellow of the Latvian Academy of Sciences.
One of three foreign members elected to the academy in 2025, Jansone-Popova was born and raised in Latvia. She earned her doctorate from the University of Houston in 2014 before joining ORNL.
An award-winning synthetic organic chemist with 11 patents issued or pending and 54 publications, Jansone-Popova focuses on separations and coordination chemistry to advance energy innovations and clean water.
She aims to understand behavior of metal ions in materials and recovery of valuable elements and removal of contaminants from the environment. With support from the DOE Office of Science, she makes metal-binding molecules that self-assemble into complex structures. With support from the DOE Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation, she develops strategies for recovering materials critical to modern technologies for the DOE Critical Materials Innovation Hub and leads one of its four focus areas, Unlocking Secondary Sources. With support from the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy, she contributes expertise in lanthanide and actinide separations and uranium recycling that improves geological storage of used nuclear fuel.
As a technology transfer research liaison, Jansone-Popova strengthens collaborations between researchers of the Physical Sciences Directorate and ORNL’s Technology Transfer Office. She guides peers through the patenting, licensing and commercialization processes, ensuring that ORNL innovations enter the marketplace to deliver real-world impact.
Jansone-Popova received innovation awards in 2024 and 2025 from the DOE Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office. Other research honors include a DOE Young Investigator Fuel Cycle R&D Excellence Award. She is also an award-winning mentor to high school, university and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and other early-career researchers, and peer scientists.
Jansone-Popova is a member of the American Chemical Society, the American Nuclear Society and the Society of Women Engineers.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the DOE 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. — Dawn Levy
