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Alex Dumitrache collaborates with plant biologists, geneticists and other scientists in ORNL's bioinformatics and microscopy groups.
As an undergraduate at Toronto’s Ryerson University, Alexandru “Alex” Dumitrache initially studied chemistry and biology with an eye toward a career in medicine—until a class in industrial biotechnology opened his mind to other possibilities. Today his work as a microbial physiologi...
Researcher Amy Elliott and the ExOne binder jet printer at the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility.

As an engineer and a science communicator, Amy Elliott wants to learn how stuff works, and she wants you to learn about it too. The researcher studies inkjet-based additive manufacturing at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory—specifically how new materials ...

ORNL researcher Jackeline Rios-Torres sees connected and automated vehicles as the future in safer and more efficient transportation.

If you’ve ever sat in stop-and-go traffic behind a congested merge area fuming about lost time and fuel, Jackeline “Jacky” Rios-Torres is conducting some research that could relieve your frustration. Rios-Torres is in the driver’s seat of research helping to create the future of tr...

Dustin Leverman
When Dustin Leverman was growing up, he likely didn’t imagine that his interest in machines would someday turn into a career at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. But since childhood, he has been curious about how things work. “When I was little, my dad would...
Viral Patel: Engineering a better everyday life

Viral Patel came to the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory with the aim of conducting research that would provide benefits to the average consumer, and his work has not disappointed. Patel jumped into three energy efficiency projects almost immediately after start...

Suzanne Parete-Koon
As a child, Suzanne Parete-Koon knew she wanted to understand how things work. That curiosity led to a career first as a computational astrophysicist and later as a user support specialist for one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers—the Cray XK7 Titan, located at the US Depa...
Eric Pierce
Eric Pierce’s work studying the interaction between water and rocks has taken him from coast to coast, including a stop in Washington, DC, before settling in East Tennessee—all part of what he describes as a lifetime journey of learning.
First trained as a nuclear electronics technician and reactor operator in the US Navy, Maureen Searles has worked on HFIR’s operations team since February 2015.
Nuclear reactors require around-the-clock attention. Before the sun has even begun to rise, nuclear reactor controller Maureen Searles is already well into her shift at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s High Flux Isotope Reactor. HFIR produces one of the world’s highest steady-stat...
For NASA’s Mars 2020 rover mission, Nidia Gallego produces components of carbon-bonded carbon fiber (CBCF, in gray) for insulating an iridium-clad plutonium heat source power supply (inert prototype shown in silver).

Growing up in Colombia, Nidia Gallego was a diamond in the rough; she had no inkling that she would later shine as a scientist. Her father, a salesman, and mother, a homemaker, had not had the opportunity to complete high school themselves and urged their six children to stay in schoo...

Jason Newby is a physicist in the Nuclear Security and Isotope Technology Division at ORNL.
Not everyone can look back on their life and pick the specific instance that brought them to their current field and dictated the course of their career. For Jason Newby, that instance was a high school physics class that would eventually lead to him studying nuclear technology and i...