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Gina Tourassi, left, has been appointed as director of the National Center for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Tourassi replaces NCCS director Jim Hack, who will transition to a strategic leadership role in CCSD. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL

Gina Tourassi has been appointed as director of the National Center for Computational Sciences, a division of the Computing and Computational Sciences Directorate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Summit supercomputer

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science announced allocations of supercomputer access to 47 science projects for 2020.

Summit supercomputer

Processes like manufacturing aircraft parts, analyzing data from doctors’ notes and identifying national security threats may seem unrelated, but at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, artificial intelligence is improving all of these tasks.

Materials—Engineering heat transport

Scientists have discovered a way to alter heat transport in thermoelectric materials, a finding that may ultimately improve energy efficiency as the materials

U.S. Department of Energy and Cray to Deliver Record-Setting Frontier Supercomputer at ORNL

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., May 7, 2019—The U.S. Department of Energy today announced a contract with Cray Inc. to build the Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is anticipated to debut in 2021 as the world’s most powerful computer with a performance of greater than 1.5 exaflops.

Pictured in this early conceptual drawing, the Translational Research Capability planned for Oak Ridge National Laboratory will follow the design of research facilities constructed during the laboratory’s modernization campaign.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., May 7, 2019—Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Congressman Chuck Fleischmann and lab officials today broke ground on a multipurpose research facility that will provide state-of-the-art laboratory space 

Virtual universes

Using Summit, the world’s most powerful supercomputer housed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a team led by Argonne National Laboratory ran three of the largest cosmological simulations known to date.

Small modular reactor computer simulation

In a step toward advancing small modular nuclear reactor designs, scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have run reactor simulations on ORNL supercomputer Summit with greater-than-expected computational efficiency.

Illustration of the intricate organization of the PKA structure, wherein different parts of the protein are connected through elaborate hydrogen bonding networks (dashed yellow lines), glued together by the hydrophobic assemblies (light blue and orange volumes)—all working together to build the functional active site. Insert shows protonation of the transferred phosphoryl group (cyan mesh) and its many interactions with water and the active site amino acid residues. Credit: Jill Hemman/ORNL

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 20, 2019—Direct observations of the structure and catalytic mechanism of a prototypical kinase enzyme—protein kinase A or PKA—will provide researchers and drug developers with significantly enhanced abilities to understand and treat fatal diseases and neurological disorders such as cancer, diabetes, and cystic fibrosis.

ORNL-led collaboration solves a beta-decay puzzle with advanced nuclear models

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 11, 2019—An international collaboration including scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory solved a 50-year-old puzzle that explains why beta decays of atomic nuclei